Those not marked * acted only as administrators. When a governor

had acted as administrator immediately before becoming governor,

the earlier date is given. The names of all the ad interim

administrators are not given.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNORS OF QUEBEC

(After Confederation)

The Rt. Hon. Sir Narcisse Fortunat Belleau

The Rt. Hon. Sir Narcisse Fortunat Belleau (re-appointed)

Hon. Rene Edouard Caron

Hon. Luc Letellier de St. Just

Hon. Theodore Robitaille

Hon. Louis François Rodique Masson

Hon. Auguste Real Angers

Hon. Sir J.A. Chapleau

Hon. L.A. Jetté

Hon. L.A. Jetté (re-appointed)

Hon. Sir Charles A.P. Pelletier

Hon. Sir François Langelier

CHAPTER IV

CIVIC GOVERNMENT UNDER JUSTICES OF THE PEACE

1764

RALPH BURTON, GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL, BECOMES MILITARY

COMMANDANT--FRICTION AMONG MILITARY COMMANDERS--JUSTICES

OF PEACE CREATED--FIRST QUARTER SESSIONS--MILITARY

VERSUS CITIZENS--THE WALKER OUTRAGE--THE TRIAL--WALKER

BOASTS OF SECURING MURRAY’S RECALL--MURRAY’S DEFENSE

AFTER HIS RECALL--THE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE ABUSE THEIR

POWER--CENSURED BY THE COUNCIL AT QUEBEC--COURT OF COMMON PLEAS

ESTABLISHED--PIERRE DU CALVET--CARLETON’S DESCRIPTION OF THE

“DISTRESSES OF THE CANADIANS.”

The governor of Three Rivers, Ralph Burton, proclaimed to the

Montrealers on October 29, 1763, his nomination by General

Amherst as governor of Montreal in succession to General Gage.

He announced that the civil justice would be administered by the

same courts as hitherto. His ordinances have nothing striking

beyond one ordering all who had gunpowder in their homes, and

there were many, to take it to the powder magazine, and another

announcing that on April 24, 1764, all who in accordance with

the definitive treaty of peace wished to leave for France must

within three weeks send in their declarations with their exact

descriptions and the number of their household they propose to

take with them. In August, Murray reported that only 270 men,

women and children, mostly officers and their families, left the

colony.

On August 10th military rule ended in Montreal but Burton

continued on as military commandant.

Burton resigned his governorship in July, 1764. As the position

of governor was not to be continued at Montreal or Quebec, no

one succeeded him. He was confirmed, however, as Brigadier. Yet,

although in command of a few troops, he refused to recognize

Murray as his military superior, hence complications and

conflicts arose. Murray wrote in indignation that if Burton were

removed it would be better for himself and everybody. Murray is

accused by his enemies of quarreling with everybody, but it is

evidently hard on a governor general to have his wings clipped

by having under him in a civil capacity a commander who took his

orders from General Gage of New York. Where the military rights

and civil duties of Burton at Montreal or of Haldimand at Three

Rivers and Murray at Quebec, began and ended, was a harassing

doubt to all three.

On January 11, 1764, letters patent were sent to the first

justices of the peace at Montreal, including Moses Hazen, J.

Grant, John Rowe, Francis McKay, Thomas Lambe, F. Knife, John

Burke, Thomas Walker and others. Among these were two Swiss

Protestants, Catholics being excluded from the office as yet,

owing to the difficulty of their subscribing to the religious

test not being yet solved.

The first general quarter sessions of the peace was held on

December 27, 1764, and there were present Moses Hazen, J. Dumas,

F. McKay, Thomas Lambe and Francis Knife. The court adjourned.

The first case was one of battery and assault.

On August 10, 1764, military rule ceased. The new civil

government brought to a head much of the ill feeling existing

in the city. The tables were now turned, the merchant class,

already become the magistrates, were now in the ascendant and

rancours prevailed. The old-time antipathies between the soldiers

and citizens at New York and Boston were being reproduced in

Montreal. There were no barracks, although the troops had been

there four years. Consequently the system of billeting became

necessary and caused continual annoyance.

The famous Walker outrage grew out of one of these troubles.

Captain Fraser had billeted a Captain Payne on a French-Canadian.

In the house lodged one of the new justices of the peace who

claimed exemption for the house. In reply he was told that

the justices’ rooms were exempt but not the other rooms, and

on Payne’s persistence in claiming the billet, the magistrate

refused to yield his possession. The case was brought before

Justice Walker, who, as a magistrate, ordered Payne to vacate the

rooms and on his refusing to comply committed him to jail for

contempt. He was released on bail. Two days afterwards, on the

6th of December, 1764, occurred the “Walker outrage,” which has

been described more or less fully in various histories of Canada,

sometimes incorrectly.

Walker was an Englishman who had lived for many years in Boston,

coming to Montreal some time after the close of the war in 1760,

where he engaged in trade with the upper country. He was a bold,

aggressive man, full of democratic notions, who set himself up as

the agent of the people, opposed the actions of Governor Murray

in every way, and afterwards had endeavoured to use his influence

to have Murray recalled. In many ways he showed that he was no

great friend of the Military then established in Montreal.

The outrage on him, dated on the night of the 6th, he attributed

to the Military, and was the occasion of the seizure of “John

Fraser, Esq.,” Deputy Grand Paymaster; “John Campbell, Esq.,” now

Captain of His Majesty’s Twenty-seventh Regiment; “Daniel Disney,

Esq.,” now Captain of the Twenty-fourth Regiment; “St. Luke La

Corne, Esq.,” (Knight St. Louis), “Samuel Evans,” Lieutenants

in His Majesty’s Twenty-eighth Regiment, and “Joseph Howard,”

Merchant, all of the City of Montreal, being to their great

surprise seized and taken out of their beds in the middle of

the night of the 18th inst., November, 1766, by “Edward William

Gray, Esq.,” Deputy Provost Martial in and for the district of

Montreal, assisted by a party of soldiers with fixed bayonets,

and by them hurried down to Quebec, where they were in close

custody on the charge of having on or about “the sixth day of

December, 1764, feloniously and with malice forethought, and by

lying in wait assaulted, wounded and cut off part of the ear

of ‘Thomas Walker, Esq.,’ of Montreal in this Province, with

intention in so doing to disfigure the said ‘Thomas Walker.’”

The informant was “George Magovock” late soldier in the

Twenty-eighth Regiment of foot, making oath before “William Hey,”

Chief Justice in and for the Province of Quebec.

The Chief Justice was petitioned by the prisoners to be released

on bail, but apparently the influence of Walker was so great,

that this was not easy. The whole of Montreal was in a great

state of irritable excitement, a deputation of the members of the

Council, the principal merchants of Montreal and the officers of

the Fifteenth, Twenty-seventh, Fifty-second and Royal American

Regiments entreated the Chief Justice to grant the petition of

the prisoners for bail, asking him to interpose his authority and

to mitigate the rigour of the law for gentlemen, “whose honors we

are so well convinced, that we offer to become their bail until

the trial.”

The petition is signed by the following: Colonel Irving,

A. Mabane,[1] Thomas Dunn,[1] J. Goldfrap, F. Mounier, T.

Mills, Members of the Council; Thomas Ainslie, Collector of

the Customs and Justice of the Peace; J. Marteilhe, J.P.; J.

Collins, J.P.; C. Drummond, Comp. of the Customs; J. Porteus,

Charles Grant, S. Frazer, J. Woolsey, W. Grant, G. Measam, T.

Scott, J. Werden, E. Gray, J. Aitken, Wm. Garett, G. Allsopp,

J. Antill, Gridley, H. Boone, J. Watmough, Samuel Jacobs, H.

Taylor, F. Grant, S. Lymbery, Amiet, Perras, Dusault, Deplaine,

Fleurimont, Fremont, Perrault, Bousseau, Guillemain, Panet,

Beaubien, Principal Merchants; La Naudiere, Crois de St.

Louis; Captain Grove, Royal Artillery; Colonel Irving, Captain

Prescott, Captain-Lieutenant D’Aripe, Lieutenants Mitchel,

Lockart, Dunn, Magra, Doctor Roberts, Fifteenth Regiment; Captain

Morris, Ensign Winter, Twenty-seventh Regiment; Colonel Jones,

Captains Phillips, Williams, Addison, Davidson, Alcock, Geofrey,

Lieutenants Neilson, Dinsdale, Smyth, Aderly, Hamilton, Watters,

Holland, Hawksley, Adjutant Splain, Ensigns Stubbs, Molesworth,

Fifty-second Regiment; Captains Carden, Etherington, Schloser,

Tucker, Burin, Rechat, Ensign McKulloch, Royal Americans.

Whatever the whole hubbub was about it was evidently of such

importance that the Chief Justice did not see his way to grant

the bail, and it was not until two years later that the case came

before the Grand Jury in Montreal. Meanwhile the city had been

divided in two factions.

On the 28th of February, the cases against all but Captain

Disney were thrown out by the Grand Jury,[2] but a true bill was

brought against him. This was on a Monday. Francis Masères, who

succeeded Suckling as attorney general, prosecuted for the Crown,

and Morison, Gregory and Antill defended Town Major Disney.

We may now tell the story in the words of the report of Chief

Justice Hey, transmitted to London on his return to Quebec on

April 14, 1767.

“_The bill against Major Disney being returned on a Monday,

I appointed Wednesday for his trial, his Jury, after some

few challenges on both sides, was composed of very reputable

English merchants residing at Montreal, of very fair characters

& as unprejudiced as men could be who had heard so much of so

interesting a story._

“_The only evidence that affected Major Disney was that of Mr. &

Mrs. Walker & Magovock, the substance of which I will take the

liberty to state to yr. Lordship as shortly & as truly as my

notes & my memory will enable me to do, all the other witnesses

speaking to the fact as committed by somebody without any

particular knowledge of Major Disney._

“_The narrative will perhaps be less perplexed--The house opens

with two doors, one a strong one next the street, (within that a

sashed one), into the hall where the Family were at supper when

the affair began; short on the right hand at the entrance from

the street are folding doors which lead into a Parlour, at the

further end of which Fronting the Folding doors is ye door of

the bed chamber where Mr. Walker keeps his fire arms of which he

has great numbers ready loaded. In the hall almost fronting the

street doors, are 2 which lead into a kitchen & a back yeard,

through which Mrs. Walker & the rest of the family separately

made their escape very soon after the entrance of the Ruffians._

“_The account which Mr. Walker gave to the Jury upon the trial

was that on the 6th of Decr. 1764 at ½ past 8 in the evening

Mrs. Walker looked at her watch and said it was time to go to

supper--that the cloth was laid in the hall but that he not

having been very well that day she was persuading him to stay &

eat his supper in the Parlour--that they staid about 10 or 15

minutes in this and other conversation & then went into the hall

to supper--that he sat with his back to, & very near the street

door--that he had been but a very little time at supper when he

heard a rattling of the latch of the door as of Persons wanting

to come in in a hurry--that Mrs. Walker said Entre, upon which

the outward door was thrown open & thro’ the sash of the inward

one he saw a great number of People disguised in various ways,

some with little round hats others with their faces blacked,

and others with crapes over their faces--that he had time to

take so much notice of them as to distinguish 2 Persons whose

faces tho’ blacked he was sure he should know again if he saw

them--that they burst the inward door & several of them got round

to the doors leading to the Parlour as designing to cut off his

retreat into that room--that upon turning his head towards that

room he received from behind a blow which he believes was given

with a broad sword,--that he passed thro’ them into the Parlour

receiving many wounds in the passage got to the further end of

the room near the chamber door before which stood 2 men who had

got before him & prevented his entrance into it--that these 2

with others who had followed him striking and wounding all the

way, sett upon him & forced him from the door into window, the

curtains of which entangled itself round him and he believes

prevented their dashing his brains out against the wall, that he

received in the whole no less than 52 contusions besides many

cuts with sharp instruments--that he believes during the struggle

in the window he was for some little time deprived of his senses,

sunk in stupefaction or stunned by some blow, till he heard a

voice from the opposite corner of the room say ‘Let me come at

him I will dispatch the Villian with my sword’ that this roused

him and determined him to sell his life as dear as he could--that

’till this time tho’ he had apprehended & experienced a great

deal of violence, he did not think they intended to take away his

life because he had seen Major Disney in the outer room & knowing

he had done nothing to disoblige him, he did not believe that

he would have been amongst them if they had intended to murther

him--that he broke from the persons who held him in the window &

advanced towards the Part of the room from whence the voice came

where 2 persons were standing with their swords in a position

ready for making a thrust at him, but does not know whether they

actually made a Pass at him or not, that he put by one of their

swords with his left hand upon which they both retreated into

the corner--that his Eyes at this time being full of blood, he

was not capable of distinguishing the features of a face with

great accuracy, but from the size & figure & gesture of the

person whose sword he parried & from whom he believes the words

came, he thought it to be Major Disney--that several of them then

seized him at once (one of them in particular taking him up under

the right thigh) and carried him towards the fire place with

the intention as he believed to throw him upon the fire--that

the marks of his bloody fingers were upon the jamb of the

chimney--that he turned himself from the fire with great violence

& in turning received a blow on his head which the surgeons say

must have been given with a Tomahawk--which felled him to the

ground & after that a blow upon his Loins which he feels to this

day--that then one of them sat or kneeled by him (he lying at

his length upon the floor) andeavouring as he imagined to cut

his throat--that he resisted it by inclining his head upon his

shoulders & putting his hand to the place, a finger of which was

cut to the bone--that it was a fortnight before he knew that he

had lost his ear, his opinion all along having been that in that

operation they intended to cut his throat & believed they had

done it--that one of them said the Villian is dead, another Damn

him we have done for him, and a third uttered some words but his

senses then failed him & he does not recollect what they were._

“_This was the whole of the Evidence given by him in Court in

the cross-examination great stress was laid upon his positive

manner of swearing to Major Disney in disguise upon the transient

view which by his own account he had of him, and under the

circumstances of terrour and confusion which such an appearance

must have occasioned; to which he answered that he had time

in the hall before any blow was given to take a distinct view

of him, and that he actually did do it, and tho’ it was true

he had a crape over his face, yet it was tied so close that

he discerned the features and Lineaments of it very perfectly

and that he was positive it was Mr. Disney, of his dress other

than the crape upon his face he could give no account, and then

he was questioned if he had not often declared that he knew

nobody but upon slight surprise he said that he remembered Mr.

Disney perfectly the next morning, but that he mentioned him to

nobody but Mrs. Walker, charging her at the same time to conceal

it, because he thought he had suffered by her in discretion in

mentioning the name of another Person whose influence with People

in Power had prejudiced the inquiry which was then making into

the affair._

“_Mrs. Walker confirmed all the circumstances of their manner

of coming in & swore as directly to Major Disney, that Lieut.

Hamilton (as she did for some time believe but has since had

occasion to think she was mistaken) was the first that entered

that she saw Major Disney among a Groupe of figures very

distinctly with a crape over his face and dressed in a Canadian

Cotton Night Gown._

“_Magovock went thro’ his story as contained in his affidavit

a copy of which has been transmitted to your Lordship, not

without a manifest confusion of his countenance & a trembling

in his voice common to those who have a consciousness that they

are telling untruly, & a fear of being detected--his cross

examination took a great deal of time in the course of which he

contradicted all the other witnesses & himself in circumstances

so material that I am persuaded he was not himself present at the

transaction._

“_Major Disney proved by several witnesses, Dr. Robertson,

Madam Landrief, Madam Campbell & Mrs. Howard that he spent that

afternoon from 5 till ½ past 9 when he was sent for by Genl.

Burton (he being town Major, upon the uproar that this affair had

occasioned) at the house of Dr. Robertson--it was a particular

festival with the French of whom the company was mostly composed,

that he danced ’till supper time with Madam Landrief in the midst

of which Genl. Burton’s servant came & called him out--they spoke

all very positively to his being present the whole time & the

impossibility that he could be absent for 5 minutes without their

knowing it._

“_Upon this evidence the Jury went out of Court and in about an

hour returned with their Verdict Not Guilty--In justice to them

and to Major Disney I must declare that I am perfectly satisfied

with the Verdict._

“_Mr. Walker’s violence of temper and an inclination to find

People of rank in the Army concerned in this affair, has made

him a Dupe to the artifices of a Villian whose story could not

have gained credit but in a mind that came too much prejudiced

to receive it, the unhappy consequence of it I fear will be that

by mistaking the real objects of his Resentments the public will

be disappointed in the satisfaction of seeing them brought to

justice._

“_I should inform Your Lordship that the G. Jury inflamed with

Mr. Walker’s charge against them are preparing to bring in

several actions for words and have presented both him and Mrs.

Walker for Perjury--I have endeavoured to put a stop to both and

I hope I shall succeed._

“_I have the honour to be_

“_My Lord_

“_Yr. Lordship’s most obedt & humble servant_,

“_W. Hey_.”

The report of the trial was printed by Brown and Gilmour at

Quebec, it being the second book that appeared in Canada. The

first book published is generally believed to be “Catechisme du

Diocese de Sens Imprimé a Quebec chez, (Brown and Gilmour).” Brown

and Gilmour were the printers of the first journal “The Quebec

Gazette” published on June 21, 1764. It was printed with columns

of English and French and was issued weekly.

Walker was afterward removed on the consideration of the Council

from the commission of the peace at Montreal because of his

seditionary tendencies and of the frequent accusations of his

insolent and overbearing temper which made it impossible for

his brother magistrates to associate with him. General Murray

reluctantly consented if for no other reasons than his enemies

would otherwise see vindictiveness in his actions.

On the 27th of March, 1766, Walker, who had powerful friends

in England, was ordered by His Majesty to be restored to the

magistracy. On the same day an order from the privy council

was issued by the governor of Michillimackinac and Detroit to

give him effectual assistance in his business pursuits. At

the same time stringent orders were given for the discovery

of the perpetrators of the outrage on him. The government

offered a reward of two hundred pounds, and of a free pardon

and a discharge from the army to any person informing. Montreal

inhabitants offered another three hundred pounds. But there was

nothing done.

Between the actual outrage and the final acquittal of Captain

Disney, Walker had been a thorn in the flesh to Murray. His

dismissal from the bench made him no friend of the Governor and

he boasted afterwards that he had influenced Murray’s recall.

The first news of this likely recall came in 1765; on February

3d Murray wrote lamenting that Mr. Walker should have known it

before himself.

Murray’s position was an unenviable one; his sympathy with the

French Canadians was the basis of the anger of the little knot

of powerful merchants against him; he was made the scape-goat

for the difficulties arising from the bad working of the

unfavorable new civil government. In addition he had troubles

with the commandants of Montreal and Three Rivers who as military

commanders had much independent authority, over which Murray had

no control, much to his chagrin. The constitutional documents

of this period contain the petitions signed by twenty-one of

the merchants for his recall, and that of the seigneurs for his

maintenance. Their description of those allied against Murray

runs thus: “A cabal of people who have come in the train of the

army as well as clerks and agents for the London merchants.”

Their testimony to Murray is his justification. “We were suited

in the government of Mr. Murray. We knew his character, we were

fully satisfied with his probity and his feelings of humanity; he

was fitted to bring your new subjects to a regard for the yoke of

your kindly domination by his care to make it light.”

On April 1, 1766, Conway, secretary of the colonies, wrote

to Murray requesting his immediate return. He left Quebec on

June 28th, leaving the government in the hands of the senior

councillor, Lieut.-Col. Aemilius Irving; on the same day there

arrived the new bishop, M. Briand to fill the vacancy left by

Pontbriand, who died in Montreal before the capitulation.

The result of the Walker outbreak was that Murray’s frequent

representations that barracks should be built were listened to

and in 1765 they were erected, but hardly so, when in February,

1766, they were burned down with all the stores placed there. A

public meeting was called to appeal for shelter for the soldiers,

who were again billeted upon the inhabitants, but with the

promise that by May 1, houses should be hired for them. On his

return to London Murray in his report to Shelburne on August 20,

1766, had his revenge on the New England settlers whom he calls

broadly the most immoral collection of men he had ever known, and

says:

“Magistrates were made and juries composed from four hundred and

fifty contemptible sutters and traders. The judge pitched upon

to conciliate the minds of seventy-five thousand foreigners to

the laws and government of Great Britain was taken from a jail,

entirely ignorant of law and of the language of the people.

“* * * On the other hand the Canadians, accustomed to an

arbitrary and a sort of military government, are a frugal,

industrious and moral race of men who from the just and mild

treatment they met with from His Majesty’s military officers that

ruled the country for four years past until the establishment of

the civil government had greatly got the better of the natural

antipathy they had of their conquerers. They consist of the

noblesse who are numerous and who pride themselves much upon

the antiquity of their families, their own military glory and

that of their ancestors. These noblesse are Seigneurs of the

whole country and though not rich are in a situation, in that

plentiful part of the world where money is scarce and luxury

still unknown, to support their dignity. The inhabitants, their

tenanciers, who pay only annual quit rent of about a dollar for

one hundred acres, are at their ease and comfortable. They have

been accustomed to respect and obey the noblesse; their tenure

being military they have shared with them the dangers of the

field and natural affection has been increased in proportion to

the calamities which have been common to both in the country.

So they have been taught to respect their Seigneurs and not

get intoxicated with the abuse of liberty; they are shocked at

the insults which their noblesse and the king’s officers have

received from the English traders and lawyers since the civil

government took place.”

He adds: “The Canadian noblesse were hated because their birth

and behaviour entitled them to respect and the peasants were

abhorred because they were saved from the oppression they were

threatend with.”

The letter concludes: “I glory in having been accused of war

with unfairness in protecting the king’s Canadian subjects and

of doing the utmost in my power to gain to my royal master the

affections of that great, hardy people whose emigration, if ever

it should happen, will be an irreparable loss to this country.”

Though Murray was recalled it must not be assumed that his policy

of colonial government was disapproved of by the ministers for

it was not until April, 1768, that he relinquished the office

of governor in chief. After a time the opposition between the

military and the magistrates died down, but the latter now became

a fertile source of oppression to the civil population.

Let us then turn our attention to the Montreal justices of the

peace. In 1769, reports had reached the Council at Quebec as

to the oppresive practices of some of the magistrates of the

Montreal district, and in consequence the council addressed

to many of them on July 10, 1769, a letter of remonstrance

applicable to “those magistrates only who had given occasion for

the complaint.”

The circular prepared by a committee of the Council was addressed

“To the Justices of the Peace active in and for the district

of Montreal.” It opened with a charge that “it appears from

facts too notorious to be dispelled that His Majesty’s subjects

in general, but more particularly his Canadian subjects, are

daily injured and abused to a degree they are no longer able to

support nor public justice endure.” The chief charges were of

extorting excessive fees from litigants applying freely to the

court and that in addition a low class of bailiffs, many of them

French Canadians, who provoked and instituted lawsuits among the

inhabitants were going about with blank forms signed with the

justices’ names ready to be filled up at any moment. Thus abuses

were numerous.

In August a committee of the Council sat to consider further

the state of the administration of Justice under the justices

of peace. A report was prepared and was read on August 29th and

September 11th. It was agreed to in the Castle of St. Louis

by the council on September 14th, and Acting Attorney General

Kneller was instructed to prepare an ordinance on the point.

The report after stating that although the original powers

in matters of property given to justices of the peace by the

ordinance of September 14, 1764, were exceedingly grievous and

oppressive to the subjects, yet even so “the authority given

to the Justices hath been both too largely and too confidently

entrusted and requires to be retrenched if not wholly taken

away.” It then notices “The Justices of Montreal have in one

instance, and probably in many others which have passed without

notice, assumed to themselves powers of a nature not fit to

be exercised by any Summary Jurisdiction, whatsoever, in

consequence of which Titles to Land have been determined and

possessions disturbed in a way unknown to the laws of England and

inconsistent with the solemnity and deliberation which is due to

matters of so high and important a nature. And we are not without

information, that even where personal property only has been in

dispute, one magistrate in particular under pretense that it was

at the desire and request of both the contending parties has by

himself exercised a jurisdiction considerably beyond what the

ordinance has allowed even to three Justices in full court at

their Quarter Sessions.

“From an omission of a similar nature and for want of

ascertaining the manner in which their judgments were to be

inforced, we find the Magistrates to have assumed another very

high and dangerous Authority in the exercise of which Gaols are

constantly filled with numbers of unhappy objects and whole

families reduced to beggery and ruin.”

Later the report refers to evils “which will probably always be

the case when the office of a Justice of Peace is considered as a

lucrative one and must infallibly be so when it is his principal,

if not, only dependence.”

One consequence of the report was the appointment in the

ordinance of a Court of Common Pleas to be held before judges

constantly residing in the town of Montreal. This court was

now to be independent of, and with the same powers as, that

at Quebec. Hitherto the latter had held adjourned meetings on

different days at Montreal. The object was to give inexpensive,

speedy and expert hearing to Montrealers.

The ordinance passed in the council on February 3, 1770, was

translated and soon appears in English and French in the

“Gazette.” When it appeared in Montreal it roused strong

indignation among the magistrates whose powers were now

curtailed. A memorial signed by fifty signatures only was

presented on the part of “merchants and others of the city of

Montreal” with twenty objections to the Ordinance. Pierre du

Calvet, a French Huguenot magistrate, was one of the indignant

protestors and his usual high-flown style characterizes his

memorial. According to Sir Guy Carleton’s statement to the

deputation they had issued handbills calling a meeting of the

people to discuss grievances, they had importuned and even

insulted several French Canadians because they would not join

them. Carleton who had now succeeded Murray in the Government

of Canada warned them that they were acting against their own

interests, that the firm refusal of the Canadians as well as

of most of their countrymen plainly showed the opinion the

generality of the public entertained. In his letter to Lord

Hillsborough of the 25th of April, 1770, Carleton, however, after

pointing out the evils caused by the law as administered by the

justices says: “Though I have great reason to be dissatisfied

with the conduct of some of the justices there are worthy men in

the commission of the peace in both districts and particularly in

this of Quebec.” (See Brymner’s Canadian Archives Report, 1890,

whose abstract is here used.)

To the credit of the better class of Montreal merchants of this

period we must clearly dissociate the names of men who like

James McGill and others have deserved the city’s most grateful

remembrance, from the inferior “grafters,” to use a modern term,

then exploiting the people. These were disapproved of by many of

their own race. Carleton’s report of them to Lord Hillsborough

dated Quebec, 28th of March, 1770, clearly designates the

“rascals” of the day. “Your Lordship has already been informed

that the Protestants who have settled, or rather sojourned here

since the conquest, are composed only of Traders, disbanded

soldiers and officers, the latter, one or two excepted, below

the Rank of Captains, of those in the Commission of the Peace

such as prospered in business could not give up their time to

sit as Judges, and when several from accidents and ill-judged

undertakings became Bankrupts they naturally sought to repair

their broken fortunes at the expense of the people; hence a

variety of schemes to increase their business and their own

emoluments. Bailiffs of their own creation, mostly French

soldiers either disbanded or Deserters, dispersed through the

parishes with blank citations, catching at every little feud or

dissension among the people, exciting them on to their Ruin and

in a manner forcing them to litigate what, if left to themselves,

might have been easily accommodated, putting them to extravagant

Costs for the Recovery of very small sums; their Lands, at a

time there is the greatest scarcity of money and consequently

but few Purchasers, exposed to hasty sales for the Payment of

the most trifling debts, and the money arising from these sales

consumed in exorbitant Fees, while the Creditors reaped little

benefit from the Destruction of their unfortunate Debtors. This,

My Lords, is but a very faint sketch of the Distresses of the

Canadians and the cause of much Reproach to our National Justice

and the King’s Government.” (Report Canadian Archives for 1890.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For their action in this case Carleton removed their names

from the council.

[2] List of the grand jury of the district of Montreal before

which bills were laid against the prisoners charged with the

assault on Thomas Walker:

1. Samuel McKay, Esq. (Foreman).

2. M. St. Ours (K. of St. Louis).

3. Isaac Todd.

4. Francis de Bellestre (K. of St. Louis).

5. Louis Mattorell.

6. Mons. Contrecoeur (K. of St. L.).

7. Mons. Niverville (K. of St. L.).

8. Thomas Lynch.

9. Mons. La Bruiere.

10. John Livingston.

11. Jacob Jordan.

12. Mons. Niverville de Trois Rivières.

13. Mons. Normanville.

14. Moses Hazen.

15. Dailbout de Cuisy.

16. Jas. Porteous.

17. Jno. Dumas.

18. Wm. Grant.

19. Samuel Mather.

20. Augustus Bailie.

21. John Jennison.

In a P.S. from Sir Guy Carleton to Lord Shelburne it is stated:

“The attorney general at the desire of Mr. Walker objected to the

Knights of St. Lewis being of the grand jury as not having taken

the oath of allegiance, which objection they immediately removed

by cheerfully taking them.”

CHAPTER V

THE PRELIMINARY STRUGGLE FOR AN ASSEMBLY

THE BRITISH MERCHANTS OF MONTREAL

“VERY RESPECTABLE MERCHANTS”--A LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ON

BRITISH LINES PROMOTED BY THEM--INOPPORTUNE--VARIOUS

MEMORIALS TO GOVERNMENT--THE MEETINGS AT MILES PRENTIES’

HOUSE--CRAMAHE--MASERES--COUNTER PETITIONS.

Trade passed over almost bodily to the English. The records of

the _Chambre de Milice de Montreal_ at present at Quebec reveal

even in the civil disputes during the Interregnum of 1760-63

a boom in trade in Montreal such as those of the past never

portrayed.

The early traders have been whipped unmercifully by Murray and

Carleton but there were certainly some who were recognized as

“very respectable merchants.” The British merchants were first

at Quebec at its fall, and soon they also followed to Montreal

at the Capitulation. Many were weeded out by failure and the

climate, but the residue that remained of the class of the canny

mercantile adventurers who always adorn the hour of advancing

civilization, with the addition of more solid representatives of

the large English houses, was the foundation of the enterprising

merchant class of Quebec and Montreal, but especially of the

latter centre, which quickly seized the control of the wholesale

business, particularly the fur trade, the traffic with the

Indians and the foreign commerce. Despite the narrowness of their

vision and the jealous grasping after power due to them, they

considered, as the conquering body, this small group of men by

their superior activity, wealth and political skill came to wield

great influence in the city and on the country on the whole well

and wisely.

Hitherto, we have had to point out some of the weaknesses of

those of the less honourable and unsuccessful merchant class,

even of those who became magistrates. It remains now to chronicle

the action of a well meaning body of the substantial business

men at Montreal toward consolidating the constitutional system

of the country and developing it along British colonial lines.

Their political foresight was ahead of their time. Yet from

the earliest days of British rule the English merchants of

Montreal, together with those of Quebec, certainly kept before

themselves and the Home Government the need of a representative

assembly as promised to them, such as they had been familiar

with in other British colonies in America. Unfortunately the

desire to have this manned by Protestants only was made too

evident from the outset and alienated the sympathy of those of

the French Canadians otherwise becoming well disposed. Their

narrow inherited spirit of intolerance, their conception of

British rights, for they came “bearing all the laws of England

on their backs,” their belief in their own capabilities, their

evident business success and the large capital they invested in

Canada,[1] the strong conviction of the ultimate needs of such

an institution, if ever the country was to be reduced to the

same uniformity as the other colonies where British institutions

flourished, blinded them to the inopportuneness of the hour for

the establishment of such an assembly. They forgot, imbued as so

many of them were with democratic and republican tendencies, that

the New British Province was not an infant colony, but one which

had been long in existence and impregnated with French feudalism.

Again the upper classes were against the assembly, and the lower

not prepared by education[2] or desire, to take their share in

popular government; much less were they inclined to be permitted

to vote for a class who desired openly and not very discreetly to

ignore the political existence of their race.

Still the merchants persisted. An opportunity was given by the

departure of Carleton, who had asked leave of absence for a few

months to place his views directly before the government, but

it was not till 1774 that he returned. During that time his

delayed presence in London was valuable for consultation in the

preparation of the “Quebec Act.” Carleton left behind his first

counsellor, a Swiss Protestant, Hector Theophile Cramahé, to act

for him. Carleton departed early in August and on the 9th Cramahé

issued a proclamation declaring that the command had temporarily

devolved upon him. In 1771, on July 21st, Cramahé was appointed

Lieutenant Governor. Shortly after Carleton’s departure Cramahé

sent two petitions to him to be presented to the King’s Most

Excellent Majesty.

The first was that of the Quebec and Montreal British

free-holders, merchants and traders on behalf of themselves and

others. His Majesty is reminded of his direction to governors

in his Royal proclamation of the 7th of October in the third

year of his reign, that general assemblies should be called

as soon as the state and circumstances thereof would admit,

in such manner as is used in the provinces of America under

His Majesty’s immediate government. The arguments adduced are,

that such an assembly would strengthen the hands of government,

give encouragement and protection to agriculture and commerce,

increase the public revenue and in time would be a happy means of

uniting the new subjects in a due conformity to the British laws

and customs.

The memorialists represented: “That Your Majesty’s British

subjects residing in this province have set examples and given

every encouragement in their power to promote industry, are

the principal importers of British manufactures, carry on

three-fourths of the trade of this country, annually return a

considerable revenue into Your Majesty’s exchequer in Great

Britain; and though the great advantages this country is

naturally capable of, are many and obvious, for promoting the

trade and manufactures of the mother country, yet for some time

past both the landed and commercial interests have been declining

and if a General Assembly is not soon ordered by Your Majesty

to make and enforce due obedience to laws for encouraging

agriculture, regulating the trade, discouraging such importations

from the other colonies as impoverish the Province, your

petitioners have the greatest reason to apprehend their own ruin

as well as that of the province in general.

“That there is now a sufficient number of Your Majesty’s subjects

residing in and possessed of real property in this province and

who are otherwise qualified to be members of a General Assembly.”

This petition is signed by thirty-one of the principal merchants.

It will be noticed that there are only two of these names that

appeared on the petition of 1765 for the assembly and the recall

of Murray. The whole document is more dignified. The memorialists

are men of great weight. Their claim as the developers of

commerce is undoubted. The only weakness lay in the concluding

clause which is merely the outcome of the traditional intolerance

then in vogue but which was to be the chief cause of the delay of

their efforts till the act of 1791 at last crowned their efforts.

Among the Montreal signatures in the above memorial are those of

Alexander Henry, John Porteous, James McGill, Alexander Paterson,

Richard Dobie, J. Fraser and Isaac Todd.

The above memorial was set off by that of fifty-nine “Canadian”

leaders who appealed for the restoration of their customs and

usages according to the laws, customs and regulations under which

they were born and which served as the basis and foundations of

their possessions. They also ask not to be excluded from offices

in the service of the king. The petition is to be presented by

Sir Guy Carleton. “It is to this worthy representative of Your

Majesty who perfectly comprehends the ambitions of this colony

and the customs of this people that we confide our most humble

supplications to be conveyed to the foot of your throne.”

The year 1773 saw great activity in the duel; the case of the

old and new subjects was being argued in London. The most

eminent statesmen and lawyers, state officials, were studying

the numerous documents in view of the proposed Quebec act of

settlement. The merchants of Montreal and Quebec determined to

make a great effort. In the winter of 1772 Thomas Walker, of

Montreal, and Zachary Macaulay, of Quebec, had already conferred

in London with Masères about the prospect of an Assembly.

Mazères, though now a cursitor baron of the exchequer, still

kept his interest in Canadian affairs as when attorney general

at Quebec. There is no name more prominent among those who

contributed to the elucidation of the difficulties of this time

than this able man. His Huguenot upbringing, however, somewhat

warped his otherwise calm judgment in surveying the French

Canadian position, yet his was a warning of the opportunist. “I

told them,” wrote Masères to Dartmouth on January 4, 1774, “that

I thought a legislative council, consisting of only Protestants

and much more numerous than the present, and made perfectly

independent of the Governor so as to be neither removable nor

suspendible by him on any pretense but only removable by the

King in council, would be a better instrument for that province

than an assembly for seven or eight years to come, and until the

Protestant religion and English manners, laws and affections

shall have made a little more progress there and especially an

assembly unto which any Catholics shall be admitted.”

The two representatives, however, seemed to have been resolved

to push for an Assembly for they were both found to be on the

committee organized for that purpose on October 30, 1773,

in Quebec at Miles Prenties’ Inn. The meeting was called by

John McCord. The circumstances are related by Cramahé’s letter

to Dartmouth of December 13th when he inclosed the final

petitions sent to him by the merchants. “About six weeks or

two months ago a Mr. McCord from the north of Ireland, who

settled here soon after the conquest, where he picked up a

very comfortable livelihood by the retailing business in which

he is a considerable dealer, the article of spiritous liquors

especially, summoned the principal inhabitants of this town that

are Protestants to meet at a tavern where he proposed to them,

applying for a house of assembly.”

The transactions, of the meeting called by McCord and of the

subsequent ones, were recorded and sent to Masères by Quebec

and Montreal citizens. He was thought to be the right person to

approach as their agent, to have their case ventilated in London.

They wrote to him on November 8, 1773, “The British inhabitants

of whom we are appointed a committee are of very moderate

principles. They wish for an assembly as they know that to be

the only sure means of conciliating the new subjects, etc.” How

the assembly is to be composed is a matter of the most serious

consideration; “They would submit that to the wisdom of His

Majesty’s council.”

They had evidently become less exacting in their demands that it

should be reserved for Protestants. What they really wanted was

the Assembly.

The meeting at Miles Prenties’ in the Upper Town held on October

30th resulted in a committee of eleven being formed to draw up a

petition for an assembly. The following were the eleven: William

Grant, John Wells, Charles Grant, Anthony Vialars, Peter Fargues,

Jenkin Williams, John Lees, Zachary Macaulay, Thomas Walker (of

Montreal), Malcolm Fraser (secretary), John McCord (chairman). It

was resolved that a copy of the minutes be sent to the gentlemen

of Montreal. At the second meeting at Prenties’, November 2d

(Tuesday), it was resolved to translate the petition into French

and that the principal French inhabitants be invited to meet them

at Prenties’ on Thursday, November 4th. It was further resolved

to send a copy of the minutes and a draft of the petition by

next post to Montreal addressed to Mr. Gray, to be communicated

to the inhabitants of Montreal. On Thursday, November 4th, of

the fifteen invitations sent out only eight French gentlemen

appeared. The translation of the petition was read, and the

clause on the composition of the assembly according to His

Majesty’s wisdom, doubtless noted. After discussion M. Decheneaux

and M. Perras undertook to convene a meeting of their fellow

French citizens at 2 o’clock on Saturday next, to interest them

in furthering the petition.

On Monday, November 8th, the English committee met at Prenties’.

Being anxious to know what measures had been taken by the French

on Saturday, Malcolm Fraser sent a note by a bearer to M. Perras,

M. Decheneaux being out of town. A brief reply was sent back

dated Quebec, 8-10th November, saying that the hasty departure of

the vessels for Europe had not permitted him to reply according

to his desire; “However I have seen some of my fellow citizens

who do not appear to me to be disposed to assemble as some of

us could wish. ‘Le grand nombre l’emporte et le petit reduit a

prendre patience.’”

The next meeting of the committee was to be called at the

discretion of the secretary as “the business will depend on the

letters to be received from Montreal.”

Cramahé, explaining to Dartmouth, who had succeeded Hillsborough

as Colonial Secretary, the want of cooperation by the French,

says: “The Canadians, suspecting their only view was to push them

forward to ask, without really intending their participation

of the privilege, declined joining them here or at Montreal.”

Had the petition asked for the abolition of the religious test

and the inclusion of Catholics in the assembly the Canadians

would have doubtless cooperated. The petition was presented

on December 4, 1773; the Quebec (fifty-two) and Montreal

(thirty-nine) signatures are both dated November 29th. It was

presented to Cramahé as the Lieutenant Governor and he was prayed

in accordance with the powers given the Governor by the Royal

proclamation of 1763: “To summon and call a general assembly of

the freeholders and planters within your government in such a

manner as you in your jurisdiction shall judge most proper.” As

the words stand it may be argued that the merchants were ready

to forego their Protestantism in favour of a mixed assembly, but

evidently the acting Governor had his doubts. Cramahé therefore

answered cautiously, as was expected, “That the petition was

altogether of too much importance for His Majesty’s Council here

to advise at a time when the affairs of the province were likely

to become an object of public regulation. The petition and his

answer would be transmitted to His Majesty’s Secretary of State.”

The second petition already arranged for, and containing the

answer of Cramahé, was prepared and sent to the King’s Most

Excellent Majesty, praying him “to direct Your Majesty’s Governor

or Commander in Chief to call a general assembly in such manner

and of such constitution and form as to Your Majesty, in your

Royal wisdom, shall seem best adapted to secure its peace,

welfare and good government.” Besides the copy sent through

Cramahé to Dartmouth, the committee sent another to Masères to

enable him to present their case and to communicate its purport

to their mercantile associates in London. The signatures of the

Quebec subscribers, dated December 31, 1773, numbered sixty-one,

those of Montreal dated January 10, 1774, reached eighty-one.

Cramahé’s comment on these signatures in his letter to Dartmouth

reads: “It may not be amiss to observe that there are not above

five among the signers to the two petitions who can be properly

styled freeholders and the value of four of these freeholds

is very inconsiderable. The number of those possessing houses

in the towns of Quebec and Montreal, or farms in the country

held of the king for some private seigneur upon paying a yearly

acknowledgment, is under thirty.”

As an offset, the memorial to the petition sent by the seigneurs

and principal Catholics about February, 1774, and made in

opposition to an assembly, urges the granting of their request

“because we possess more than ten out of twelve of all the

seigneuries of the province and almost all the lands of the other

tenures or which are holden by rent service.”

In addition to the petition to the king signed by the “ancient

and loyal subjects” of Quebec and Montreal, two memorials to Lord

Dartmouth were separately sent by the promoting committees at

either place. These seemed to have been presented through Masères

since they are not indorsed, as were the petitions to the king,

as received through Cramahé.

The Montreal memorial urging the furtherance of their petition

is dated Montreal, January 15, 1774, and signed by a committee

appointed at a general meeting of the inhabitants of Edw. W.

Gray, R. Huntley, Lawrence Ermatinger, Will Haywood, James

McGill, James Finlay, Edward Chinn.

The memorial included a new element, viz., “Your Lordship’s

memorialists further see with regret the great danger that

children born of Protestant parents are in of being utterly

neglected for want of a sufficient number of Protestant pastors

and thereby exposed to the usual and known assiduity of the Roman

Catholic clergy of different orders who are very numerous and who

for their own friends have lately established a Seminary for the

education of youths in this province, which is the more alarming

as it excludes all Protestant teachers of any science whatever.”

The name of James McGill, the founder afterwards of McGill

University, is significant, therefore, on this petition.

The counter petition and the memorial accompanying it, signed by

sixty-five of the noblesse, followed in February, 1774. Thus the

duel went on. We delay recounting its outcome till the case for

the Seigneurs is more fully disclosed in the next chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Witness the appeal for Murray’s recall. Thomas Walker is said

to have brought ten thousand pounds into the province.

[2] M. Lothbiniere, the representative of the noblesse in London

said that he doubted whether more than four or five persons in a

parish could read.

CHAPTER VI

THE QUEBEC ACT OF 1774

THE NOBLESSE OF THE DISTRICT OF MONTREAL

THE GRIEVANCES OF THE SEIGNEURS--MONTREAL THE

HEADQUARTERS--“EVERY INTRIGUE TO OUR DISADVANTAGE WILL BE

HATCHED THERE”--PETITIONS--CARLETON’S FEAR OF A FRENCH

INVASION--A SECRET MEETING--PROTESTS OF MAGISTRATES TODD AND

BRASHAY--PROTESTS OF CITIZENS--CARLETON’S CORRESPONDENCE FOR

AN AMENDED CONSTITUTION IN FAVOUR OF THE NOBLESSE--THE QUEBEC

ACT--ANGLICIZATION ABANDONED.

The _Noblesse_ of the district of Montreal are now to play a

great part in the making of the constitutional history of Canada.

They had appreciated the government of Murray and had petitioned

for his continuance but in vain. At the same time while thanking

the king for the appointment of the Bishop Briand which was

a great concession, they asked for two favours: first, the

suppression of the Land Register, the expense of which exhausted

the colony without its drawing any profit therefrom; second,

that all the subjects of this province without any distinction

of religion should be admitted to all offices without any other

qualifications but those of talent and personal merit; for to

be excluded by the state from having any participation in it is

not to be a member of the state. This petition was signed by

Chevalier D’Ailleboust and thirty-nine other seigneurs and was

endorsed as received on February 3, 1767.

The grievance of the seigneurs in the latter request was briefly

this: that though the French Canadians were not obliged by the

Royal Instructions of 1763 to take the oath of the test of

allegiance, supremacy and religious abjuration, yet these oaths

were obligatory on all who would hold an appointment under

government such as members of the proposed assembly, civil

and military officials, etc. Hence the constant effort of the

noblesse to remove this odious civil disability continued until

in 1774 the act of Quebec made it disappear and saw a formula

substituted which was acceptable to all honest and conscientious

“new subjects.” The following oath, afterwards taken almost

textually by Bishop Briand, in the light of today will be seen to

be quite adequate:

“Je, A.B. promets et jure sincèrement que Je serai fidèle et

porterai vraie allégeance à Sa Majesté le roi George, que Je

le défendrai de tout mon pouvoir contre toutes conspirations

perfides et tous attentats quelconques, dirigés contre sa

personne, sa couronne et sa dignité; et que Je ferai tous mes

efforts pour découvrir et faire connaitre à Sa Majesté, ses

heretiers et successeurs, toutes trahisons et conspirations

perfides et tous attentats que Je saurai dirigés contre lui ou

chacun d’eux; et tout cela, Je le jure sans aucune équivoque

subterfuge mental ou restriction secrète, renoncant pour m’en

relever, à tous pardons et dispenses de personne ou pouvoir

quelconques.

“Ainsi que Dieu me soit en aide,”

The same form taken from the English was as follows:

“I, A.B., do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful

and bear true allegiance to His Majesty, King George, and that I

will defend him to the utmost of my power against all traitorous

conspiracies and attempts whatever, which shall be made against

His Person, Crown and Dignity, and that I will do my utmost

endeavor to disclose and make known to His Majesty, His Heirs or

Successors, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies and attempts

which I shall know to be against him or any of them; And all this

I do swear without any equivocation, mental evasion or secret

reservation and renouncing all pardons and dispensations from any

Person or Power whichever to the Contrary.

“So help me God.”

After the recall of Murray the seigneurs and clergy had looked

forward to the arrival of the new lieutenant governor, Sir Guy

Carleton, who reached Quebec on September 23, 1766, to relieve

Col. Aemiluis Irving, who had acted for nearly three months as

administrator on the departure of General Murray. He did not

become governor-in-chief until October 25, 1769, Murray yielding

up the government about April, 1768.

It may be noted that Carleton’s first message to the Council is

one which promulgated the doctrine Salvation through Harmony or,

Safety in Concord, which under the form of “Concordia Salus” is

that now recognized as the official motto of the City of Montreal:

“Gentlemen of the Council:

“I return you Thanks for your kind and dutiful Address and for

the Respect shown to His Majesty’s Commission; I doubt not but I

shall always find your hearty Concurrence to Everything I shall

propose for the Good of His Service.

“My present Demand is that all may join to preserve good Humour

and a perfect Harmony, first among His Majesty’s natural born

Subjects, also between His Subjects by Birth and His Subjects by

Acquisition, so that no Distinction may be noted but the great

Difference between good men and bad. As the Good and Happiness

of His People is the first Object with the King, our Sovereign,

we must all know, nothing would be more acceptable to them; We

must all Feel nothing can be more agreeable to the great Laws of

Humanity.

“Quebec, 24th Sept., 1766.”

The new Governor soon found that in proportion to the arrogance

of the English-speaking minority demanding an assembly in which

they would be the sole representatives, the noblesse were

becoming increasingly restless, for while accepting the English

criminal law they demanded their French civil code and customs

unmodified. Carleton was inclined to accept this view, but

Masères, the attorney-general, who had presented lengthy reports

on the situation and had pointed out his own remedies, argued

that the English law should be the basis of jurisdiction with the

admission of certain sections of Canadian law and customs which

would have been acceptable to the English inhabitants, also. He

recommended the immediate preparation of a code reviving the

French law relating to tenure, dower and inheritance of landed

property, and the distribution of the effects of persons who died

intestate.

What may have influenced Carleton in his willingness to concede

so much to the demand of the seigneurs was the fear of the

movement spreading in Canada among the seigneurs to cast off

British rule. His attention was drawn to Montreal as the center

of the secret negotiations and dissatisfaction. General Murray

in his letter of October 29, 1764, had already pointed out to

the Lords of Trade and Plantation the difficulties likely to be

created there if the Canadians were not accepted on juries. “I

beg leave,” he says, “further to represent to Your Lordship that

a lieutenant-governor at Montreal is absolutely necessary; that

town is in the heart of the most populous part of the province.

It is surrounded by the Indian nations and is 180 miles from

the capital. It is there that the most opulent priests live and

there are settled the greatest part of the French noblesse,

consequently every intrigue to our disadvantage will be hatched

there.” (“Canadian Archives,” Vol. II, page 233.)

One of the causes of General Murray’s allusions to plots at

Montreal at this time may have been the presence of Ensign

William Forsyth who had commanded an independent patrol of

Scotch settlers in New Hampshire during the Indian war along the

border, shortly after the session of Canada in 1763. He had been

wounded and escaped to Montreal. He was related to several of

the Canadian noblesse, particularly that of the Denys family. It

is suggested that on the occasion of this visit there may have

been planted the germs of an alliance between the French noblesse

and the Scotch legitimists in favour of a Stuart dynasty which

afterwards ripened into a more complete understanding.

On January 7, 1763, a petition signed by ninety-five of the chief

inhabitants, including Montrealers such as Guy, and Jacques

Hervieux, was presented to the king, protesting against the

attitude of the British minority in excluding them from the law

courts and asking for a confirmation of the privileges contained

in Murray’s act for French Canadians. “Who are they that wish to

proscribe us? About thirty English merchants of whom fifteen at

the most are settled. Who are the proscribed? Ten thousand heads

of families who breathe only submission to Your Majesty’s orders.”

Can it be wondered that at Montreal, the headquarters of the

seigneurs, there is much dissatisfaction? The seigneurs at this

time in petitioning the king for the maintenance of General

Murray complained: “Our hopes have been destroyed by the

establishment of the civil government that had been so highly

extolled; we saw rise with it cabal, trial and confusion.” This

may be taken as their prevailing attitude of mind.

On the 25th of November, 1767, Carleton wrote a remarkable letter

in which, forecasting the possibility of a French war surprising

the province, he recommends “The building of a citadel within

the town of Quebec that the troops might have a fort capable of

being defended by their numbers till succour could be sent them

from home or from the neighbouring colonies; for should a French

war surprise the province in its present condition the Canadian

officers sent from France with troops might assemble such a body

of people as will render the king’s dominion over the province

very precarious while it depends on a few troops in an extensive

fort open in many places.” (“Archives,” Series Q, Vol. V, page

250.)

Again Carleton, in the same letter to Shelburne, feared the

possibility of former French officers, especially those who left

after the capitulation, being sent back to Canada to lead an

uprising. He knew these had been encouraged to return to France

and were being upkept as a separate body with pay. “For these

reasons,” he says, “I imagine, an edict was published in 1672,

declaring that, notwithstanding the low state of the king’s

finances, the salary of the captains of the colony troops of

Canada should be raised from 450 _livres_, the establishment by

which their pay was fixed at first, to 600 _livres_ a year, to

be paid quarterly, upon the footing of officers in full pay, by

the treasurer of the colonies, at the quarters assigned them by

His Majesty in Tourraine, and that such of them as did not repair

thither should be struck off, the king’s intentions being that

the said officers should remain in that province until further

orders, and not depart from thence without a written leave from

the secretary of state for the marine department.

“A few of these officers had been sent to the other colonies, but

the greater part still remained in Tourraine, and the arrears

due to those who have remained any time in this country are

punctually discharged, upon their emigration, from them and

obedience to the above mentioned injunction.

“By the secretary of state’s letter a certain quantity of wine,

duty free, is admitted to enter the towns where these Canadian

officers quarter, for their use according to their several ranks.”

In a further letter to Shelburne of December, 1767, he again

clearly recognized the difficult political situation. “The most

advisable method in my opinion for removing the present as well

as for preventing future evils is to repeal that ordinance

(of September 17, 1764) as null and void in its own nature

and for the present leave the Canadian laws almost entire;

such alterations might be afterwards made in them as time and

occurrences rendered the same advisable so as to reduce them to

that system His Majesty shall think fit, without risking the

dangers of too much precipitation; or else such alterations might

be made in the old and new laws judged necessary to be inevitably

introduced and publish the whole as a Canadian code as was

practiced by Edward I after the conquest of Wales.”

Meanwhile the seigneurs were not idle. In 1767 there was

an assembly at Montreal of the noblesse presided over by

the Chevalier D’Ailleboust and the petition was signed of

remonstrance to the king, dated February 3d, already quoted,

against discrimination against them.

This leads us to ask the question: Did the seigneurial body

meet in open or secret conclave when their interests were to be

safeguarded? Both kinds of conclaves would seem likely. It is

certain, however, that such meetings were as far as possible

prevented. Garneau “Histoire du Canada,” 4th edit., (Vol. II,

page 400) relates that in 1766 Hertel de Rouville in the name

of the seigneurs of Montreal applied for permission for the

seigneurs to meet, which was granted on condition that two of

the Supreme Council should be present with power to dissolve the

gathering. When the seigneurs assembled General Burton, who had

not been warned, wrote to the magistrates who replied that all

was in order. “In any case,” replied the suspicious general, “if

you have any need of assistance I will send it you.” The meeting

was called by Hertel de Rouville “by a particular order of the

Governor and Council” who doubtless thought by conciliating the

seigneurs, so far the responsible representatives of the people,

that peaceful relations could be maintained with the new subjects.

A document recently unearthed by Mr. Massicotte, at the

Court House archives, reveals that on the 3d of March, 1766,

the Montreal merchants met in the house of James Crofton,

inn-keeper “to protect against the meeting of the seigneurs

held in the public court house on Friday, February 21st, 1766.”

Their declaration before Edward William Gray, “Notary and

Tabellion Publick,”[1] protested that the seigneurs had been

unconstitutionally chosen at the different parish meetings to

represent the inhabitants of the seignories as agents “without

the knowledge or consent of the magistrates of the districts, the

commander-in-chief of His Majesty’s forces or the inhabitants

of the city;” that these separate meetings not only for the

entire exclusion of His Majesty’s ancient British subjects in

general but of the mercantile part of His Majesty’s new subjects,

did not make for unity or content. They further protested that

“several of His Majesty’s British subjects who are possessed

of seignories never received an order or summons to this said

meeting.” The declaration further states that upon the principal

English and French citizens assembling at the courthouse in

order to be present at and know the cause of the public meeting

they were informed by Adam Mabane, Esq., one of His Majesty’s

council for the province that their presence was not necessary,

as the meeting did not regard them and ordered them out. There

were two of His Majesty’s justices of the peace present, Isaac

Todd and Thomas Brashay, who “the public, thinking they had been

given sanction to it, expressed them in such a manner that they

sent down their resignation to the governor.” The malcontents

withdrew under the impression that representatives for the

people were being chosen without their consent. They flattered

themselves, however, that when the house of assembly promised in

His Majesty’s proclamation should come “His Majesty’s ancient

subjects will be permitted at least to have a share in the choice

of their representatives.”

The document written in English and French is signed in the

former by John Wells, R. Stenhouse, Mathew Lessey, Samuel Holmes,

John Stenhouse, G. Young, Joseph Howard, Lawrence Ermatinger,

Mathew Wade, James Price, Thomas Barron, Jonas Desaulles,

Richard Dobie, William Haywood, John Blake, and in the French

by Jean Orilliat, Le Cavelier Pappalon, Le Prohon Dissan, Guy,

Am. Hubert, St. Germain, Gagnée, Hervieux, Jacques Hervieux,

Lg Bourassa, C. Depré, P. Le Duc, Pillet, Augé, Chenville. The

witnesses to both documents are B. Frobisher, John Thomson.[2]

The names of the seigneurs given as present at the meeting are,

(1) Claude Pierre Pecaudy de Contrecoeur, (2) Roch St. Ours

Deschaillons, (3) Jacques Michel Hertel de Rouville, (4) Joseph,

Michel Legardeur Sr. de Croiselle-Montesson, (5) Joseph Boucher

de Niverville, (6) Joseph Godfrey de Normanville, (7) Louis

François Pierre Paul Margane de Lavaltrie, (8) Hyacinthe Godfrey

de Lintot, (9) Pierre Louis Boucher de Niverville, (10) Louis

Gordian or Louis Charles, D’Ailleboust, (11) René Ovide Hertel

de Rouville, (12.) Louis Joseph Godefroy de Tonnancourt, (13)

Jean François Nepveu, Seigneur d’Autray, (14) Jacques Hyacinthe

Simon dit Delorme, Seigneur Delorme (or St. Hyacinthe), (15) Jean

Baptiste Normand, Seigneur de Repentigny, (16) Charles Etienne

Crevier, Seigneur de St. François, (17) Joseph de Fleury, Sr.

d’Archambault, (18) René Boudier de la Breyère, (19) Abbé Etienne

Montgolfier (Superior of the Seminary and Seigneur of the Isle of

Montreal).

Carleton writing to Earl of Shelburne, one of His Majesty’s

principal secretaries (given in Q 5, page 260, “Canadian

Archives”), may again be quoted as indicating the grounds

on which his toleration of such meetings as the one above

recorded.[3]

“Quebec, 25th November, 1767.

“The king’s forces in this province, supposing them compliant to

their allowance and all in perfect health, rank and file, would

amount to 1,627 men. The king’s old subjects in this province,

supposing them all willing, might furnish about five hundred men

able to bear arms, exclusive of his troops; that is, supposing

all the king’s troops and old subjects collected in Quebec; with

two months’ hard labor they might put the works in a tolerable

state of repair and would amount to about one-third the forces

necessary for its defense. The new subjects could send into

the field about eighteen thousand men well able to carry arms;

of which number above one-half had already served with as much

valour, with more zeal and more military knowledge for America

than the regular troops of France that were joined with them.

As the common people are greatly to be influenced by their

Seigneurs, I annex a Return[4] of the noblesse of Canada, showing

with tolerable exactness their age; rank and present place of

abode, together with such natives of France as served in the

colony troops so early in life as to give them a knowledge of the

country, an acquaintance and influence over the people equal to

natives of the same rank; from whence it appears that there are

in France and in the French service about one hundred officers,

all ready to be sent back in case of a war to a country they are

intimately acquainted with and with the assistance of some troops

to stir up a people accustomed to pay them implicit obedience.

It further shows there remain in Canada not more than seventy of

those who ever had been in the French service; not one of them

in the king’s service nor any one who from any motive whatever

is induced to support his government and dominion; gentlemen who

have lost their employment at least by becoming his subjects and

as they are not bound by any offices of trust or profit we should

only deceive ourselves by supposing they would be active in the

defense of a people that has deprived them of their honours,

privileges, profits and laws and in their stead have introduced

much expence, chicannery and confusion with a deluge of new laws

unknown and unpublished. Therefore, all circumstances considered,

while matters continue in their present state, the most we can

hope for from the gentlemen who remain in this province is a

passive neutrality on all occasions, a respectful submission to

government and deference for the king’s commission in whatever

hand it may be lodged; this they almost to a man have persevered

in since my arrival, notwithstanding much pains have been taken

to engage them in parties by a few whose duty and whose office

should have taught them better. * * *

“Having arrayed the strength of His Majesty’s old and new

subjects and shewn the great superiority of the latter, it may

not be amiss to observe there is not the least probability this

present superiority should ever be diminished. On the contrary

’tis more than probable it will increase and strengthen daily.

The Europeans who migrate never will prefer the long inhospitable

winters of Canada to the more cheerful climates and more fruitful

soil of His Majesty’s southern provinces; the few old subjects at

present in this province have been mostly left here by accident

and are either disbanded officers, soldiers or followers of the

army, who not knowing how to dispose of themselves elsewhere,

settled where they could at the Reduction; or else they are

adventurers in trade or such as could not remain at home, who set

out to mend their fortunes at the opening of this new channel for

commerce, but experience has taught almost all of them that this

trade requires a strict frugality they are strangers to, or to

which they will not submit; so that some from more advantageous

views elsewhere, others from necessity, have already left this

province and I fear many more for the same reason will follow

their example in a few years; but while this severe climate and

the poverty of the country discourages all but the natives, its

healthfulness is such that these multiply daily so that, barring

a catastrophe shocking to think of, this country must to the end

of time be peopled by a Canadian race who already have taken

such a firm root and got to so great a height that any new stock

transplanted will be totally hid and imperceptible amongst them

except in the towns of Quebec and Montreal.”

This last consideration no doubt largely influenced Carleton in

his readiness to uphold the ancient laws and customs. He had not

the vision of an English-speaking Dominion such as that of today,

of which the British merchants of Montreal and Quebec of the

early days with all their faults were laying the sure foundation

by their commercial enterprise and dogged pertinacity.

Writing again to Shelburne on December 24, 1767, Carleton reminds

his Lordship that the colony had submitted to His Majesty’s

arms on certain conditions. He doubtless had in view, good tory

as he was, the objection of the noblesse to the institution

of a democratic representative assembly already urged by the

merchants of Quebec and Montreal with their experience of such

in the English colonies, as inimical to the established order of

things, for the system of laws so long in vogue before the act of

1763 maintained the subordination between the different social

divisions from the highest to the most humble ranks and upheld

the harmony now being threatened, thus keeping this far-off

province in its loyalty to the crown.

On January 20, 1768, he again wrote recommending the inclusion,

in the Council and the army, of a number of the noblesse. By

this means he said: “We would at least succeed in dividing the

Canadians and in case of war we would have a certain number on

our side who would stimulate the zeal of the national troops

of the king. Besides, the nobles would have reason to hope

that their children without having received their education in

France and without serving in the French service would be able

to support their families in the service of the king, their

master, in the exercise of offices which would prevent them

from descending to the level of the common people through the

division and the subdivision of their lands in each generation.”

(Constitutional Documents, French Edit.)

On April 12, 1788, he again champions the noblesse and even

recommends that the ceremony of seigneurial feudalism be kept

up as under the ancient régime. “All lands here,” he says,

“are dependent on His Majesty’s Château of St. Louis and I am

persuaded that nothing can be more agreeable to the people and

more suitable to secure the allegiance of the new subjects as

well as the payment of fines, dues and rights which take the

place of quit rents in this colony as a formal requisition,

enjoining all who hold their lands directly from the king to

render him _foi et homage_ in his Château of St. Louis. The oaths

taken by the vassals on this occasion are very solemn and binding

and involve serious obligations; they are obliged in consequence

to produce what they call here their ‘aveux et dénombrement,’

i. e., an exact return of their tenants and their revenue. In

addition they have to pay their dues to their sovereign and

to take arms to defend him in the case of an attack on the

province.” (Constitutional Documents, French Edit.)

A letter of Carleton to Lord Hillsborough of November 20, 1768,

is headed “Secret Correspondence” (“Archives,” Series Q, Vol. V,

page 890).[5] It shows that others besides Murray and Carleton

had been viewing with suspicion the actions of the noblesse

who were thought to be meditating a revolt. “My Lord,” writes

Carleton, “since my arrival in this province I have not been

able to make any discovery that induces me to give credit to

the paper of intelligence inclosed in Your Lordship’s letter of

the 20th of May, last, nor do I think it probable the chiefs of

their own free notion in time of peace dare assemble in numbers,

consult and resolve on a revolt; that an assembly of military men

should be so ignorant as to fancy they could defend themselves

by a few fire ships only against any future attack from Great

Britain after their experience in fifty-nine. Notwithstanding

this and their decent and respectful obedience to the king’s

government hitherto, I have not the least doubt of their secret

attachment to France and think this will continue as long as they

are excluded from all employment under the British government

and are certain of being reinstated at least in their former

commissions under that of France by which chiefly they supported

themselves and families. When I reflect that France naturally

has the affections of all the people, that to make no mention

of fees of office and of the vexations of the law, we have done

nothing to gain one man in the province by making it his private

interest to remain the king’s subject, and that the interests

of many would be greatly promoted by a revolution, I own my not

having discovered a treasonable correspondence never was proof

sufficient to convince me that it did not exist in some degree,

but I am inclined to think if such a message had been sent, very

few were intrusted with the secret; perhaps the court of France

informed a year past by Mons. de Chatelet that the king proposed

raising such a regiment of his new subjects caused this piece

of intelligence to be communicated to create a jealousy of the

Canadians and prevent a measure that might fix their attachments

to the British government and probably of those savages who

have always acted with them; however that may be, on receiving

this news from France last spring, most of the gentlemen in the

province applied to me and begged to be admitted to the king’s

service, assuring me that they would take every opportunity to

testify their zeal and gratitude for so great a mark of favour

and tenderness, extended not only to them but to their posterity.”

The passage following is prophetic of the active interference

which ten years later France was to take in the American war

against Great Britain. “When I consider further that the king’s

dominion here is maintained but by a few troops necessarily

dispersed without a place of security for their magazines, for

their arms or for themselves, amidst a numerous military people,

the gentlemen all officers of experience, poor, without hopes

that they or their descendants will be admitted into the service

of their present sovereign, I can have no doubt but France as

soon as determined to begin a war will attempt to regain Canada,

should it be intended only to make a diversion while it may

reasonably be undertaken with a little hazzard should it fail,

and where so much may be gained should it succeed. But should

France begin a war in hopes the British colonies will push

matters to extremities, and she adopts the project of supporting

them in their independent notions, Canada, probably, will then

become the principal scene where the fate of America may be

determined. Affairs in this situation, Canada in the hands

of France would no longer present itself as an enemy to the

British colony but as an ally, a friend and protector of their

independency.”

The sympathy, respect and even fear of the seigneurs which

Carleton evinced in his reports home largely influenced the final

passage of the Quebec act. Their firmness and persistency in

their demand for their privileges and their influence over the

_habitant_ and the possibility of their allegiance being tampered

with by France made them prevail over the small but active

minority of the commercial class. At this time preparations

were being made in London for the settlement of the Quebec

difficulty. Secrecy was being observed in high quarters. Lord

Hillsborough’s answer, January 4, 1769, to Carleton’s last is

also secret, “acknowledging your secret dispatch of November

21st before His Majesty. The remarks you make upon the state and

temper of His Majesty’s new subjects will be of great utility

in the consideration of the measures now under deliberation

and do evince both the propriety and necessity of extending to

that grave and faithful people a reaonable participation in

those establishments which are to form the basis of the future

government of Quebec.” He fears, however, although he agreed with

Carleton’s recommendation, that prejudice being so strong it will

be difficult to admit them to military offices.

The following summary of investigations conducted for the

governments at this time may now be added as evidence of the

military strength of the party Carleton wished to conciliate.

Noblesse in the Province of Quebec:

Captains having the order of St. Louis 9

Captains named in the order but not invested 1

Captains who have not the order 4

Lieutenants having the order 1

Lieutenants 16

Ensigns 2

Officers de Reserve 2

Cadets 23

Have never been in the service 44

In the upper country who have never been in the service 6

----

Total 126

(At least eighty-five of these are reported as in the Montreal district.)

Noblesse in France:

Grand Croix 1

Governors, lieutenant governors, majors, aide majors,

captains and lieutenants of ships of war, having the

order of St. Louis 26

Aide-majors and captains not having the order 6

Lieutenants 12

Ensigns 19

Canadian officers in actual service whose parents have

remained in Canada 15

----

Total 79

Natives of France who came over to Canada as cadets, served and

were preferred in the colony troops and were treated in France as

Canadian officers:

Captains not having the Croix of St. Louis 7

Had the rank of captain in 1760, raised to lieutenant in

France, Knight of St. Louis 1

Lieutenants 7

Was captain in the colony troops at Mississippi, came to Canada

in 1760 and is raised to the rank of colonel in the Spanish

service at Mississippi; Knight of St. Louis 1

Having had civil employment 5

Officers of the port 2

----

Total 23

The case of the seigneurs and that of the merchants was by this

time well understood in England by the colonial authorities and

the parliament. The insistent demand for an assembly had been

well presented by Masères, while the no less repeated opposition

to it in the form of an amended constitution to guarantee

French-Canadian liberties had been equally well presented by the

seigneurs and their upholders. It remained for legislators to

settle which was the more opportune, the delay of the assembly or

the immediate concessions of favours to the conquered race.

The session of 1774 was drawing to a close but the culminating

point looked to with such eagerness on both sides of the

Atlantic, the Quebec act, was not introduced till May 17th, when

it quickly passed the three readings in the house of lords. On

the 26th it reached the second reading in the commons when the

serious opposition began. The debate was continued on June 6th,

7th, 8th and 19th, on which latter day the bill was carried in

committee by eighty-three to forty. On the third reading the

final vote was fifty-six to twenty. The House of Lords received

the bill and its amendments for further consideration on June

17th and the bill was passed on June 22d. The house was prorogued.

The Quebec Act restored the French civil law _in toto_. It

declared that Roman Catholics were to enjoy the free exercise of

their religion, though the clergy might only levy tithes on their

own subjects. It amended the oath of allegiance so as to make it

possible for an honest Roman Catholic to take it.

The act was in a sense a formal renunciation of the British

government to Anglicize the province of Quebec.[6] It was the

logical ratification of the British government’s promises to

protect the laws and institutions of the French-Canadians. It

was also a wise move. We know the views of Murray and Carleton.

General Haldimand, writing in 1780, six years after it had been

tried, confirms this thus: “It requires little penetration to

discover that had the system of government solicited by the old

subjects been adopted in Canada this colony would, in 1775, have

become one of the United States of America.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. Gray was the first English notary of Montreal, being

named such October 7, 1765; on August 15, 1768, he became an

advocate; on the 1st of May, 1776, he succeeded Mr. Turner as

sheriff. In 1784 he accepted the position of sub-director of the

post in the city.

[2] The above names are not given with this fullness. Some are

obscure, hence Mr. Massicotte’s identification of them is used

here. (Canadian Antiquarian, January, 1914.)

[3] The object of this letter is to urge the strengthening of the

fort at Quebec against the possibility of an uprising.

[4] (Canadian Archives, Q 5, page 269.) This is printed in full

in Canadian Archives for 1888, page 44.

[5] This letter does not appear among the state papers in the

Canadian Archives.

[6] Cf. F.P. Walton, Dean of the Faculty of Law, McGill

University, in an article in the University Magazine, April,

1908, entitled “After the Cession.”

CHAPTER VII

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR OF 1775

MONTREAL THE SEAT OF DISCONTENT

THE QUEBEC ACT, A PRIMARY OCCASION OF THE AMERICAN

REVOLUTION--MONTREAL BRITISH DISLOYAL--THE COFFEE HOUSE

MEETING--WALKER AGAIN--MONTREAL DISAFFECTS QUEBEC--LOYALTY

OF HABITANTS AND SAVAGES UNDERMINED--NOBLESSE, GENTRY AND

CLERGY LOYAL--KING GEORGE’S BUST DESECRATED--“DELENDA EST

CANADA”--“THE FOURTEENTH COLONY”--BENEDICT ARNOLD AND ETHAN

ALLEN--BINDON’S TREACHERY--CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS FEEBLY

ANSWERED--MILITIA CALLED OUT--LANDING OF THE REBELS--ENGLISH

OFFICIAL APATHY--MONTREAL’S PART IN THE DEFENCE OF CANADA--THE

FIRST SOLELY FRENCH-CANADIAN COMPANY OF MILITIA--NOTE: THE

MILITIA.

The Quebec act, which was hailed by the leaders of the

French-Canadians as their Magna Charta, was received with

execration in England and America. On the day of the prorogation

of Parliament, June 22d, the mayor of London, attended by the

recorder, several aldermen and 150 of the common council, went to

St. James with a petition to the king to withhold his assent from

the bill. The lord chamberlain receiving them, told them that

it was too late, that the king was then on the point of going

to parliament to give his consent to a bill agreed on by both

houses of parliament and that they must not expect an answer.

Among other objections this petition claimed: “that the Roman

Catholic religion which is known to be idolatrous and bloody

is established by this bill and no legal provision is made for

the free exercise of our reformed faith nor the security of our

Protestant fellow subjects of the church of England in the true

worship of Almighty God according to their consciences.”

In the American colonies the Quebec act largely precipitated the

American Revolution then being concocted. Strong protest was

made, as for example, that shown by the delegates of Philadelphia

on September 5, 1774, in the address to the people of England;

“By another act the Dominion of Canada is to be so extended,

modeled and governed as that by being disunited from us, detached

from our interests by civil as well as by religious prejudices,

that by their numbers, swelling with Catholic emigrants from

Europe, and by their devotion to administration so friendly

to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and on

occasion be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the

ancient free Protestant colonies to the same state of slavery as

themselves.” Again speaking of the Quebec Act, it adds “Nor can

we suppress our astonishment that a British parliament should

ever consent to establish in that country a religion which has

deluged your Island in blood and dispersed impiety, bigotry,

persecution, murder and rebellion through every part of the

world.” The Quebec act added fuel to the fire of discontent

and the people were ready for war if the Congress said so. The

congress of Philadelphia at the same time published a long,

bombastic and revolutionary address signed by Henry Middleton,

president.

“To the inhabitants of the province of Quebec.”

“We do not ask you to commence hostilities against the government

of our common sovereign but we submit it to your consideration

whether it may not be expedient to you to meet together in your

several towns and districts and elect deputies who after meeting

in a provincial congress may chose delegates to represent your

province in the continental congress to be held at Philadelphia

on the 10th of May, 1775.” An unanimous vote had been resolved

“That you should be invited to accede to our federation.” It is

interesting to note that, forgetful of the previous letter to the

British parliament breathing religious intolerance just referred

to, the artful Americans now used also the following _argumentum

ad hominem_: “We are too well acquainted with the liberality of

sentiment distinguishing your nation to imagine that difference

of religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us.

You know that the transcendent nature of freedom, elevates those

who unite in the cause above all such low-minded infirmities.”

This was printed for wide circulation in Canada and the question

of sending the delegates was eagerly discussed in Montreal’s

affected circles.

The Quebec act was one of the causes of grievance which led

to the American Revolution; it was one of the acts of tyranny

specified in the Declaration of Independence, “For abolishing the

free system of English law in a neighbouring province (Canada),

establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging

its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit

instrument for introducing the same absolute rules into these

colonies.”

But how was the bill received in Montreal? Truth to tell,

Montreal was the seat of discontent in Canada. Its infection

was carried to Quebec. Sir Guy Carleton, who shortly after the

passage of the Quebec bill left England with his young wife,[1]

the Lady Maria Howard, the third daughter of Thomas, the second

Earl of Effingham, to resume his office as governor general,

tells how the trouble started at Montreal in his letter to

Dartmouth, dated Quebec, 11th of November, 1774. We are there

informed that at Quebec there were addresses of loyal acceptation

of the situation. “I believe,” wrote Carleton, “that most of

them who signed this address were disposed to act up to their

declaration, which probably would have been followed by those

who did not, if their brethren at Montreal had not adopted very

different measures. Whether the minds of the latter are of a more

turbulent turn or that they caught the fire from some colonists

settled among them, or in reality letters were received from

the general congress, as reported, I know not; certain it is,

however, that shortly after the said congress had published in

all the American papers their approbation of the Suffolk County

Resolves[2] in the Massachusetts Assembly, a report was spread

at Montreal that letters of importance had been received from

the general congress and all the British there flocked to the

coffee house to hear the news. Grievances were publicly talked

of and various ways for obtaining redress proposed, but that the

government might not come to a true knowledge of their intentions

a meeting was appointed at the house of a person then absent,

followed by several others at the same place and a committee of

four named, consisting of Mr. Walker, Mr. Todd, Mr. Price and

Mr. Blake, to take care of their interests and prepare plans of

redress. Mr. Walker now takes the lead. * * * Their plans being

prepared and a subscription commenced, the committee set out for

Quebec, attended in form by their secretary, a nephew of Mr.

Walker and by profession a lawyer.”

Carleton proceeds to describe how the Montreal emissaries worked

up the Quebecers[3] through several “town meetings” to join

in petitions, for a repeal of the Quebec act, which were sent

to “His Majesty, to the Lords spiritual and temporal, to the

Honourable, the Commons.” The chief grievances were that they

had lost the protection of the English laws and had thrust on

them the laws of Canada which are ruinous to their properties

as thereby they lose the invaluable privilege of trial by

juries; that in matters of a criminal nature the habeas corpus

act is dissolved and they are subjected to arbitrary fines and

imprisonment at the will of the governor and council. Masères was

entrusted with the promotion of their cause. The petitions were

signed on November 12th. In February secret agents from congress

were in Montreal to see if an aggressive policy could be safely

pursued.

The majority of the English population was on the side of the

discontented provinces. The French-Canadian _habitants_ were

encouraged to remain neutral, being plied with specious arguments

to undermine their loyalty to the king. They were told that

they had nothing to lose from the government by this position

and everything to gain from the congress faction who threatened

reprisals if they became actively opposed to them. But the

noblesse, the gentry and the clergy were against the congress,

for the Quebec act had guaranteed them the securities for the

rights they most valued; they knew that there was little to hope

for from the Americans. The Quebec act came into operation on

May 1st and an instance of the unsettled state of men’s minds

in Montreal is remembered by the incident of the desecration of

the king’s bust on this day. It was discovered daubed with black

and decorated with a necklace of potatoes, and a cross attached

with the words “voila le pape du Canada et le sot Anglais.”[4]

Kingsford, following Sanguinet, says that the perpetrator of

the foolish insult, for such it was intended to be, was never

discovered. The act was regarded as insolent and disloyal and it

caused great excitement. A public meeting was called at which 100

guineas were subscribed to discover the perpetrators. The company

of grenadiers of the Twenty-Six made a proclamation by beat of

drum offering a reward of $200 and a free pardon excepting the

person who had disfigured it to any one giving information which

would lead to the discovery of the offenders. The principal

French-Canadians were greatly annoyed at this proceeding, the

words being in French. It was claimed, however, that they were

written by an English speaking revolutionist.

On April 19th the affair at Lexington, the commencement of

a civil revolution, took place and rapidly the news of it

spread. Montreal was well posted. The leaders of the provincial

sympathizers here reported to the leaders of congress the easy

fall of Canada to the insurgents. Canada was more feverishly

coveted at this time than ever. In 1712 Dummers had written:

“I am sure it has been the cry of the whole country ever since

Canada was delivered up to the French,--Canada est delenda.” In

1756 Governor Livingston of New Jersey had cried: “Canada must

be demolished--Delenda est Carthago,--or we are undone.” And now

Canada was desired as the “fourteenth colony.”

In Montreal those who had received in the coffee house

John Brown, John Adams’ ambassador, were still keeping up

communications led by Thomas Walker, Price and others. At last

the Congressists thought the conquest was being made, relying on

the presumed neutrality of the Canadians. Ticonderoga had fallen

in the beginning of May to the revolutionary party under Ethan

Allen’s self-constituted forces. The road to Canada was being

cleared. Benedict Arnold, sailing from Ticonderoga, had arrived

unexpectedly on the morning of the 18th of May at Fort St. John’s

and captured the small war sloop there and took prisoners the

sergeant and ten men in charge of the military garrison. A second

landing was made by Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys at

St. John’s on the 18th and 19th with a party said to be three

hundred strong, as Carleton was informed at Quebec. There was

great consternation in Montreal when the news of the seizure of

Ticonderoga and Crown Point and the first capture of St. John’s

was brought by Moses Hazen,[5] a merchant of Montreal now living

near St. John’s. The military was immediately put in motion by

Colonel Templer who dispatched Colonel Preston with a regiment of

one hundred men of the Twenty-sixth and this would have cut off

Allen’s descent up the lake with his bateaux had not Bindon, a

friendly Montreal merchant, hurried on horseback from Longueuil

to St. John’s to apprize Allen of the approach of the party from

Montreal.[6]

Allen before embarking gave a letter to this same Bindon

addressed to one Morrison and the British merchants at Montreal,

lovers of liberty, demanding a supply of provisions, ammunition

and spirituous liquors which some of them were inclined enough

to furnish had they not been prevented. (Carleton to Dartmouth,

June 7, 1775, from Montreal.) Bindon in returning to Montreal

fell across Colonel Preston who would have detained him but

he rode off and, crossing the St. Lawrence, found his way to

Montreal with his letters. On arriving he added to the excitement

of Montreal--it being market day--by reporting that Preston’s

detachment had been defeated. Colonel Templer called a meeting

of the citizens for 3 o’clock at the Récollet church to consider

the situation. It was numerously attended and it was resolved to

take arms for the common defense. During the proceedings Templer

received a letter from Preston detailing Bindon’s reprehensible

conduct. Bindon was himself present and turned pale as the facts

were read. The meeting was adjourned until 10 o’clock next

morning when it was held on St. Anne’s common. Templer proposed

that the inhabitants should form themselves into companies of

thirty and elect their officers. Several well known citizens were

chosen to make the roll of those willing to serve.[7] They were

of the old Canadian families known for their loyalty. Preston’s

detachment returned to Montreal, the men greatly infuriated

against Bindon. They had learned that it was from no fault of his

they had not been intercepted in the woods and shot down. So soon

as they were dismissed for parade they went in search of him.

When he was found the men forcibly led him to the pillory with

the intention of hanging him, but they were without a ladder and

the officers rescued Bindon before one could be obtained. But he

was arrested and carried before the magistrates, when he pleaded

guilty to imprudence but protested his innocence. To save his

character he played the part of a loyalist and took service in

the force organized for defense. The action of the troops with

regard to Bindon was the occasion of a public meeting called by

the party for congress.

Meanwhile a call for volunteers was met by an insignificant

enrollment of fifty Canadians who set out for St. John’s

under Lieutenant McKay, to remain there until relieved by the

Twenty-sixth regiment. Carleton moved the troops from Quebec

thither, also. The few troops at Three Rivers were also sent;

the garrison of Montreal as well. Carleton arrived at Montreal

on May 26th. He found how poorly the French-Canadians had

responded to the call to organize themselves into companies. In

St. Lawrence suburb the commissioners sent to enroll volunteers

had been met by the women with threats of stoning. The loyalty

of the French-Canadians had been sorely tampered with. There is

not a family resemblance between the letters written by Carleton

about the quality of their obedience, before the Quebec act and

after. On June 7, 1775, Carleton wrote from Montreal to Dartmouth

gloomily reviewing the situation and telling of the preparations

for the safety of St. John’s. “The little force we have in the

Province was immediately set in Motion and ordered to assemble

at or near St. John’s; the Noblesse of this Neighbourhood were

called upon to collect their Inhabitants in order to defend

themselves. The Savages of these parts likewise had the same

orders but though the Gentlemen testified great Zeal, neither

their Entreaties or their Example could prevail upon the People;

a few of the Gentry consisting principally of the Youth residing

in this place and its Neighbourhood, formed a small Corps of

Volunteers under the Command of Mr. Samuel McKay and took post

at St. John’s; the Indians showed as much Backwardness as the

Canadian Peasantry. * * * Within these few Days the Canadians and

Indians seemed to return a little to their senses, the Gentry

and Clergy had been very useful on this occasion and shewn great

Fidelity and Warmth for His Majesty’s Service, but both have

lost much of their influence over the People. I proposed trying

to form a Militia and if their minds are favourably disposed

will raise a Battalion upon the same plan as the other Corps in

America, as to Numbers and Experience, and were it established

I think it might turn out a great public Utility; but I have my

doubts as to whether I shall be able to succeed.

“These Measures that formerly would have been extremely popular

require at present a great Degree of Caution and Circumspection;

so much have the Minds of the People been tainted by the Cabals

and Intrigues, I have from time to time given to your Lordship

some information of. I am as yet uncertain whether I shall

find it advisable to proceed in the forementioned Undertaking;

to defame their King and treat with Insolence and Disrespect,

upon all Occasions to speak with the utmost contempt of His

Government, to forward Sedition and applaud Rebellion, seems

to be what too many of his British-American Subjects in those

parts think their undoubted Right.” (Constitutional Documents,

1760-1791, page 450.)

On the 9th of June, Carleton, by proclamation, authorized

the calling out of the militia throughout the whole province

according to the provisions of the old law, reinstating

officers appointed by Murray, Gage and Burton. The movement was

not popular even with the new subjects, uninfluenced by the

discontent of the disloyalists who feared in the return of the

old militia the exactions of the French régime. Chief Justice

Hey, then in Montreal, prevailed upon some of the dissatisfied

“old” but “loyal” subjects to enroll for good example, which

done, they were joined by the French-Canadians so that a

sufficient force was ready for a review before General Carleton.

The Indians of Caughnawaga at first hesitated in their loyalty,

which had also been tampered with, but they were also brought to

serve. At this time Colonel Johnson arrived in Montreal with 300

Indians of the six nations; a council of 600 Indians was held

and all agreed to take the field in defense, but not to commence

hostilities. The congressists had endeavoured to persuade them to

neutrality and the leaven was still working.

July was drawing to a close. Carleton left Montreal by way of

Longueuil to inspect the militia at Sorel and then proceeded to

Quebec, where he arrived on August 2d, to make preparations for

the establishment of the new Legislative Council. This met for

the first time on August 17th but it was adjourned on September

7th on account of news of the congress troops again appearing

on the Richelieu. The lieutenant governor, Cramahé, writing to

Dartmouth from Quebec on September 21st, tells the circumstances

how on the news of the rebel army approaching, Carleton set out

for Montreal in great haste; that “on the 7th inst. the Rebels

landed in the woods near St. John’s and were beat back to their

Boats by a Party of Savages encamped at that Place. In this

Action the Savages behaved with great Spirit and Resolution and

had they remained firm to our Interests probably the Province

would have been Saved for this Year, but finding the Canadians

in General adverse to taking up Arms for the Defence of their

Country, they withdrew and made their peace. After their Defeat

the Rebels returned to the Isle aux Noix, where they continued

till lately, sending out some Parties and many Emisaries to

debauch the Minds of the Canadians and Indians.”

Cramahé adds that no means had been left untried to bring the

Canadian peasantry to a sense of their duty and to engage them

to take up arms in defense of the province but to no purpose.

“The Justice must be done to the Gentry, Clergy and most of the

Burgeoisie that they have shewn the Greatest Zeal and Fidelity

to the King’s Service and Exerted their best Endeavours to

reclaim their infatuated Countrymen. Some Troops and a Ship of

War or two would, in all likelihood, have prevented this general

Defection.”[8]

Chief Justice Hey, writing at the end of August to the Lord

Chancellor, says in a postscript dated September 11th “that

all there was to trust to was about five hundred men, two war

boats at St. John’s and Chambly; that the situation is desperate

and that Canada would shortly be in complete possession of the

rebels.” In a further postscript of September 17th he adds that

not one hundred Canadians, except in the towns of Quebec and

Montreal, are with the king. He holds himself ready to return,

to be of more use in England. Carleton, sick at heart with

disappointment at the ingratitude of the Canadians who would

not march to defend their own country, the uncertainty of the

Indians, and the disloyalty of many of the old subjects, and

crippled by an inadequate army which was nearly all enclosed in

Forts Chambly and St. John’s, nevertheless determined to act

boldly on the defensive until General Gage should send from

Boston the two regiments earnestly asked for.

Canada was abandoned at this period by as criminal apathy and

ignorance on the part of English officials, as it had been before

by the French. As Cramahé had pointed out, some troops and a ship

of war or two sent from England, or from Gage in America, would

have saved Canada from the invasion of 1775.

The part that Montreal took in the defence of Canada must now

be told. When the news of the rebels advancing on to St. John’s

reached Montreal, Colonel Prescott, then in command, sent an

order to the parishes around the city for fifteen men of each

company of militia to join the force at St. John’s. Though no

report came from without, the Montreal army men came forward to

the number of 120 French and Canadians under the command of de

Belestre and de Longueuil, many of the volunteers being young

men of family and several being prosperous merchants, this being

perhaps the first recorded separate unit composed solely of

French-Canadians, ever raised as an arm of Imperial defence. The

party for St. John’s departed on September 7th. The loyal British

volunteers remained to perform duty in Montreal. Time will

discover who were truly loyal and who were not.

The Imperial forces in Canada were now represented by the two

companies in Montreal, eighty-two men at Chambly and the garrison

of St. John’s, consisting of 505 men of all rank, of the Seventh

Royal Fusiliers and the Twenty-sixth Regiment, thirty of the

Royal Artillery, eight of Colonel McLean’s newly raised corps

from Quebec and fifteen of the Royal Horse and 120 volunteers

from Montreal--the whole making a total of 696 in the garrison,

not counting some artificers.

Around St. John’s and in the district of the Richelieu the

inhabitants were either neutral or, with the majority, actively

espousing the congress party, some by taking to the field, others

by supplying provisions, assisting in the transport of munitions

of war and artillery and giving information.

Surely the _morale_ of the once loyal French-Canadian _habitants_

had been undermined effectively by Walker and other malcontents

and had been recently further weakened by the manifesto of

General Schuyler from the Isle aux Noix on September 15th to his

“dear friends and compatriots, the habitants of Canada,” advising

them to join him and escape the common slavery prepared for them.

Montgomery’s scouting parties, out for supplies and information,

did the rest. Of Richard Montgomery, Schuyler’s second in

command, we shall hear more.

NOTE

THE MILITIA

The militia, which was called out for service in the field in

1775, 1776, 1812, 1814, 1837, 1839, with the exception of a few

small independent corps, consisted of provisionally organized

units armed and equipped from the magazines, the regular army,

paid by the British government, drilled, disciplined and often

commanded by regular officers. After the denudation of Canada

of the regular troops at the time of the Crimean war, it became

necessary for the colony to take more provisions for its own

defence. In 1855 the military act (18 Victoria, Chapter 77),

passed by the Upper Canada, for raising and maintaining at the

colonial expense, created the nucleus of our present militia

system. The “Trent” excitement of 1861-62 and the Fenian raids

of 1867-70 further stimulated the movement. The first Dominion

militia act (31 Victoria, Chapter 40) was passed in 1868. The

present militia act (4 Edward VII, Chapter 23) received assent on

August 15, 1904. According to this statute the militia is divided

into active and reserve forces.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Carleton was then in his fiftieth year, his wife in her

twenty-second. They were married on May 22, 1772.

[2] Adopted on September 9, 1774.

[3] The Montreal agitators were fiercer than those of Quebec.

John McCord, of Quebec, wrote April 27, 1775, to Lieutenant

Pettigrew, “I pray God to grant peace at any price; the blood of

British subjects is very precious.” Walker, writing to Samuel

Adams on April 7th, breathes fire: “Few in this colony dare

vent their quip but groan in silence and dream of _Lettres de

Cachets_, confiscations and improvements.” The colonists had

declared they would fight for their rights and liberties while

they had a drop of their blood left.

[4] “This is the pope of Canada and the fool of England.”

[5] Moses Hazen passed his boyhood at Haverhill, in

Massachusetts. He served in the Louisberg expedition, rose to

be a captain in the Rangers at the taking of Quebec and was

remarked by General Wolfe as a good soldier. Later he obtained

a lieutenant’s commission in the 44th Foot and soon after the

conquest retired on half pay. We then find his name attached to

petitions of the Montreal merchants. At this time he appears to

have settled near St. John’s, carrying on not only large farming

operations but owning sawmills, a potash house and a forge.

[6] When the Americans appeared there in arms he saw, doubtless,

the losses war would bring him and he wished them elsewhere. For

a time he “trimmed” successfully, but at last was held suspicious

by both parties and was held prisoner by both.

[7] Dupuy-Desauniers, de Longueuil, Panet, St. George Dupré,

Mesére, Sanguinet, Guy and Lemoine Despins. (See the Abbé

Verreau’s valuable book “Invasion du Canada par les Americains.”)

[8] Constitutional Documents, page 435.

CHAPTER VIII

MONTREAL BESIEGED

1775

THE SECOND CAPITULATION

ETHAN ALLEN--HABITANTS’ AND CAUGHNAWAGANS’ LOYALTY TAMPERED

WITH--PLAN TO OVERCOME MONTREAL--THE ATTACK--ALLEN

CAPTURED--WALKER’S FARM HOUSE AT L’ASSOMPTION BURNED--WALKER

TAKEN PRISONED TO MONTREAL--CARLETON’S FORCE FROM MONTREAL

FAILS AT ST. JOHN’S--CARLETON LEAVES MONTREAL--MONTREAL

BESIEGED--MONTGOMERY RECEIVES A DEPUTATION OF CITIZENS--THE

ARTICLES OF CAPITULATION--MONTGOMERY ENTERS BY THE RECOLLECT

GATE--WASHINGTON’S PROCLAMATION.

While Montgomery at Isle aux Noix is planning his descent on St.

John’s, the portal of Canada, twelve miles lower down, it will

be well to follow Ethan Allen on his venturesome and abortive

attempt to take Montreal. Ethan Allen, of Bennington, was, as

Carleton had reported, “an outlaw in the province of New York,

who had become famous by his daring capture of Ticonderoga and

had been emboldened enough by his success to persuade the New

York congress to raise a small regiment of rangers.” Thus this

freebooter, with his Green Mountain Boys, became a commissioned

officer. He got employment under Schuyler and it was Ethan

Allen with John Brown, now Major, who had formerly been sent to

Montreal to sound the merchants, who bore Schuyler’s manifesto

from Isle aux Noix to the habitants of Canada. From parish

to parish he hurried and his ready wit and hustling address

captivated the peasant housewives who, being educated better than

their husbands, read the proclamation with approval to them.

He visited the Caughnawaga Indians and played havoc with their

loyalty, receiving beads and wampum from them. His reappointment

was from Montgomery, then commencing the investment of St.

John’s, who, it is said, wanting to find employment for Allen

at a distance from himself, sent him to gather up a recruit of

Canadians around Chambly. According to his own account he was

easily successful. Writing to Montgomery on September 20th from

St. Ours, “You may rely on it,” he says, “that I shall join you

in three days with five hundred or more Canadian volunteers.

* * * Those that used to be enemies to our cause come cap in

hand to me; and I swear by the Lord I can raise three times the

number of our army provided you continue the siege.” Yet, on

the night of September 23d, when he found himself at Longueuil

looking across the St. Lawrence to the city which it was his

ambition to capture, he had only about eighty still following.

He was returning to St. John’s next morning, and when two miles

from Longueuil he met John Brown, now Colonel in command of a

considerable force at La Prairie. These two, retiring to a house

with some others, conceived the plan of attacking Montreal. The

plan was for Brown with two hundred followers to cross over the

St. Lawrence in canoes above the town, and Allen’s party below

it; each would silently approach the gate at his end of the city;

Brown’s party would give three Huzzas! Allen’s would respond and

then both would fall to.

It was a brilliant idea and elated Allen. Montreal, captured by

a force of two to three thousand and the easy fall of the rest

of Canada had been the vision put before congress often enough.

“I still maintain my views,” says Colonel Easton before the

congress of Massachusetts on June 6, 1775, “that policy demands

that the colonies advance an army of two or three thousand men

into Canada and environ Montreal. This will inevitably fix and

confirm the Canadians and Indians in our interests.” On June 13,

1775, Benedict Arnold wrote to congress, sketching out a plan by

which with an army of 2,000 men, Chambly and St. John’s should

be cut off with 700 men, 300 more should guard the boats and

the line of retreat and a grand division of 1,000 should appear

before Montreal, whose gates on the arrival of the Americans were

to be opened by friends there “in consequence of a plan for that

purpose already entered into by them.”

On May 29th Allen, over confident, had written to the Continental

Congress: “Provided I had but 500 men with me at St. John’s when

we took the king’s sloop, I would have advanced to Montreal.” On

June 2d he wrote to the New York congress: “I will lay my life

on it that with 1,500 men and a proper train of artillery I will

take Montreal,” and on July 12th to Trumbull that if his Green

Mountain Boys had not been formed into a battalion under certain

regulations and command he would further “advance then into

Canada and invest Montreal.”

Here, then, was Allen to attempt to take the city of his dreams

with a smaller force than his dreams provided for! He had

forgotten, perhaps, that Carleton was in that city. He was elated

that he had added about thirty English Americans to his force,

but he was sorry that Thomas Walker had been communicated with

at his home in L’Assomption. Night came on. Allen’s little fleet

spent all the night being driven backward and forward by the

currents, but at last after six crossings were made to land his

men in the limited number of available boats, on the morning of

the 25th the daring invaders were all landed at Longue Pointe.

But they heard no Huzza! from Brown’s party from the other side

of the city. Brown had either known better or was jealous of

Ethan Allen’s desire to claim the capture of Montreal, as he had

done that of Ticonderoga.

Longue Pointe was not unfriendly but thought discretion better

than valour. Allen saw himself in a foolish position; his

slightness of force would soon be known in Montreal through the

escape from his guards of a Montrealer named Desautel going out

early to his Longue Pointe farm.

Montreal was in great excitement and confusion at the news of

the presence of the notorious New Hampshire incendiary. Even

some of the officers took to the ships.[1] It was, however, only

at 9 o’clock that Carleton heard the news. There was a hurry

and scurry and a beating of drums and the parade ground of the

Champ de Mars behind the barracks was filled with the people.

Carleton briefly told the citizens of their dangers and ordered

them to join the troops at the barracks. The instinct of

self-preservation in a common danger made most obey except some,

chiefly American colonists, that stepped forward and turned off

the contrary way.

[Illustration: COLONEL ARNOLD]

[Illustration: GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY]

[Illustration: HOUSE AT THE CORNER OF NOTRE DAME AND ST. PETER

STREETS Occupied by Montgomery and the American officers during

the winter of 1775-76.]

[Illustration: HOUSE ON THE CORNER OF RUE BONSECOURS AND ST. PAUL

STREET Occupied by government representatives from 1775 to 1791.]

At last the Montreal party was ready. They dashed through the

Quebec gate, smashing the boats there to cut off the enemies

retreat, and hurried up north. The fight with Allen’s men began

at 2 o’clock and lasted an hour and three-quarters by the

watch. Though carefully using all natural advantages of the

ground, ditches and coverts chosen beforehand, Allen himself was

compelled to surrender his sword to Peter Johnson, a natural

son of Sir William, “providing I can be treated with honour,”

he added. The officers received him with politeness, like

gentlemen. In the fight Allen lost twelve to fifteen men, killed

and wounded; some had fled, but a body of forty prisoners were

marched to the city. The defenders had lost only six to eight of

their men, so it was a famous victory. When the prisoners were

brought before Colonel Prescott in Barrack Yard an extraordinary

incident occurred, according to “Allen’s Narrative.”

“Are you the Colonel Allen who took Ticonderoga?” thundered

out the British soldier. “The very man,” was the reply.

Prescott angrily raised his cane to strike the roughly dressed,

dust-stained ranger in a short deerskin coat, breeches of

sagathy, and woolen cap. “You had better not strike me, I’m not

used to it,” cried the aroused prisoner, shaking his fist at the

angry commander of the garrison. Prescott then turned to the

habitant prisoners and ordered a sergeant to bayonet them. Allen

then stepped between his men and the soldiers and, tearing open

his clothes and exposing his shaggy bosom, exclaimed to Prescott:

“I am the one to blame. Thrust your bayonets into my breast. I am

the sole cause of their taking up arms.” A long pause. Finally

muttered Prescott, “I will not execute you now, but you shall

grace a halter at Tyburn, ---- ye!” There was no suitable prison

in Montreal so Allen was put into the hold of the Gaspé in the

harbour to wait until he should be shipped to England for trial.

Montreal was saved for the present; and Allen’s failure, as

the governor reported it, gave a favourable turn to the minds

of the people and many began now to come back to loyalty. It

seems strange, the impunity with which known plotters had been

hitherto treated. Carleton would now make an example. He turned

his eyes sternly upon Thomas Walker. Already Mrs. Walker had been

told that her husband must quit the country. Now an order for

arrest on the charge of high treason was issued. Prescott handed

the warrant to Captain Bellair. On the night of the 5th-6th of

October in their comfortable farm house at L’Assomption they were

surprised by a posse of twenty regulars and twelve Canadians.

Walker, determined to resist, shot into the crowd, who fusilladed

back. At last the four corners of the house were fired. As the

house began to burn, the smoke within almost suffocated Mrs.

Walker, so that he took her to a window and held her by the

shoulders while she lowered herself in her nightdress as far as

she could, clinging to the windowsill. Finally she was rescued by

one of the soldiers setting a ladder to the wall. The floor that

Walker was standing on was in flames, and on the promise of good

treatment from the soldiers, he surrendered. Their property was

plundered and destroyed and the farm house wrecked. The Walkers

were given some wraps to cover their unfinished attire and were

hurried to Prescott at Montreal. Charged with rebellion, Walker

was taken to the barracks and for thirty-three days and nights

he was confined in his solitary cell on a straw pallet under

a heavy load of irons. Then he was taken to Lisotte’s armed

schooner and buried in the hold prison, to be taken for trial

over seas. It was a terrifying example to all, a leading citizen,

a wealthy merchant, a Montreal magistrate and a felon! Truly a

warning to traitors.

Using this as a propitious moment Carleton issued another levy

of men from the militia around Montreal. That October he was

so encouraged that he assembled on St. Helen’s island, facing

Montreal, seven or eight hundred men, counting Indians, and later

on the afternoon of October 30th pushed off, accompanied by Luc

la Corne and Lorimier with thirty-five or forty boats for the

shore of Longueuil to bear relief to the invested fort of St.

John’s. Alan Maclean was to go from Quebec to meet Carleton at

St. John’s. But as they approached the harbour they were met with

such havoc by a force under Seth Warner that had been making use

of Longueuil Castle and who had a four-pounder emptying grape

and a goodly backing of musketry at the landing, and quickly

playing upon the astonished flotilla, so that it turned around,

bearing some forty or fifty dead and as many wounded. No American

received a scratch.

The grand stroke had failed. Maclean’s force heard the bad

news and many began to desert. It was a game of battledore and

shuttlecock for the French Canadian peasantry. It was not that

their want of loyalty was to be blamed as the practical politics

of the affair. It was a war of Englishmen again Englishmen, and

they were for the winners. The loss of Chambly was the turning

point in the siege of St. John’s which had been going on since

September 18th. Chambly had been surrendered by Major Stafford

after a siege of one day and a half, on October 17th, a sorry

event, for it was well supplied with winter provisions and

ammunition. The rebels, with the aid of others, were able for

six weeks to reinforce Montgomery at St. John’s, when he would

have been forced by the approach of winter to retire. Thus on the

morning of the 3d of November, at 10 o’clock, the surrender of

St. John’s was made by Colonel Preston to Montgomery.

The fall of Montreal was now assured and with winter approaching,

Montgomery secured his position at Chambly, St. John’s and the

Richeleau district. At Longueuil, Warren was posted with 300 men.

The complacent Indians at Caughnawaga willingly enough received

an order to remain neutral. Everything was ready for the march on

Montreal and Montgomery advanced to La Prairie, there collecting

all the boats and bateaux available for the transportation of the

troops across the river to the city. On the 11th of November news

came to Carleton in Montreal that Montgomery was crossing over.

It was now his policy to leave. The capture was inevitable and

he had prepared for it since the fall of St. John’s. He spiked

the guns and burned the bateaux he could not use and caused the

munitions, provisions and baggage to be loaded on the three

armed sloops. About one hundred and twenty regular troops were

embarked on the vessels available. In the evening at 5 o’clock

Carleton went aboard. Brigadier Prescott and the military and

staff accompanied. Eleven sail went down to Quebec. At Lavaltrie,

twelve miles west of Sorel, owing to contrary winds the flotilla

was detained during the 13th and 14th of November. On the 15th

a written summons came from Colonel Easton calling on Carleton

to capitulate. On the night of the 16th and 17th of November

Carleton went on the barge of Captain Bouchette and arrived at

Quebec on Sunday, November 19th, escaping the batteries erected

beyond Sorel to intercept the fleet at Lavaltrie.

On the same day this fleet was visited by Major Brown with

a peremptory order to surrender. Prescott saw no way out of

it; he first threw the powder into the St. Lawrence and then

surrendered. The congress troops now took charge of the fleet and

with a favourable north wind convoyed the army and fleet back to

Montreal. Walker, a prisoner in irons in the hold, was released

as soon as possible. The fleet arrived on November 22d. The

prisoners were ordered by Montgomery to parade on the river front

the following morning before the market and then lay down their

arms.

We must go back to the 11th of November and visit defenseless

Montreal. The loyalists were sad, as having been at a funeral,

in the passing away of its defenders. The discontented, now that

Montreal was on the point of changing hands, openly abandoned

their arms and threw off their disguise. That night Montgomery’s

force encamped on St. Paul’s Island. On Sunday morning, about

9 o’clock, when many were going to church, news arrived that

Montgomery was coming from the island to Point St. Charles and

a committee of twelve citizens was appointed to go to meet him.

Meanwhile he had arrived and the inhabitants of the suburbs

west of the city had assured him of their neutrality. He had

also received encouraging messages from the disaffected within

the city, for Bindon, now a sentry at one of the embrasures,

traitorously allowed a partner of Price, whom we have mentioned

as in league with the Boston party, and another, to communicate

with the congress party now advancing. Montgomery must have

learnt that there was a strong following in the city prepared

to side with him and that those opposed to him were handicapped

for want of ammunition and provision. It was reliance on these

elements within and without the city, with the knowledge that few

were willing to take up arms against him, that made it possible

for Montgomery with his slight force to capture a city of 1,200

inhabitants.

The deputation meeting him was told that he gave them four

hours to consider the terms on which they would accede to his

authority. Being told that he must not approach nearer the

city, he answered that it was somewhat cold weather and he

immediately sent fifty men to occupy the Récollet suburb, and

before 4 o’clock his whole force was established there. This made

an uproar in the town and the loyalists were for shooting on

them. The articles of capitulation were prepared and presented

to Montgomery. “I will examine them and reply soon,” said he.

They demanded that “The religious orders should enjoy their

rights and properties, that both the French and English should

be maintained in the free exercise of their religion, that trade

in the interior and upper part of the provinces and beyond the

seas should be uninterrupted, that passports on legitimate

business should be granted, that the citizens and inhabitants

of Montreal should not be called upon to bear arms against the

mother country, that the inhabitants of Montreal and of every

part of the province, who have borne arms for the defense of the

province then prisoners, should be released, that the courts of

justice should be reestablished and the judges elected by the

people, that the inhabitants of the city should not be forced to

receive the troops, that no habitant of the country parishes and

no Indians should be admitted into the city until the commandant

had taken possession of it and made provision for its safety.”

The general in reply stated first, “that owing to the city

of Montreal having neither ammunition, adequate artillery,

troops nor provisions and not having it in its power to

fulfill one article of the treaty, it could claim no title

to its capitulation, yet the continental army had a generous

disdain of every act of oppression and violence; they are come

for the express purpose of giving liberty and security.”[2]

He accepted most of the provisions laid down. But from the

unhappy differences of Great Britain and the colonies he was

unable to engage that trade should be continued with the mother

country. In acceding to the demands he made it understood that

the engagements entered upon by him would be binding on his

successors.

Next day, the 13th of November, the congress troops, many of

whom wore the scarlet uniforms of the British troops found in

the military stores at St. John’s and Chambly, entered by the

Recollet gate (at the corner of McGill and Notre Dame streets)

and, receiving the keys to the storehouses of the city, marched

proudly along Notre Dame Street to the barracks opposite what is

now known as Jacques Cartier Square.

The capture of Montreal was quickly made known in the American

province. “Dispatches for His Excellency, General Washington;

news of Montreal’s quiet submission of that city to the

victorious arms of the United Colonies of America” was soon

announced in the New England Chronicle.

Montgomery remained in Montreal until November 28th. News came of

the success of the detachment placed at Sorel. For, on the 22d,

as already stated, the eleven vessels captured by Colonel Easton

at Lavaltrie were brought into Montreal with Colonel Prescott and

the military prisoners and the released Thomas Walker. One reason

for Montgomery’s delay was due to the expectancy of the arrival

of the detachments he had ordered. He now left General David

Wooster in command of the detachment kept behind in the city

and went down the river to join Benedict Arnold, who had been

unsuccessful in his attack on Quebec, and to take command of the

besieging forces. For unless Quebec were taken, Canada could not

be said to have been subdued.